Swan Sit, The Serendipity of Life and Business

It’s been one of the more rewarding parts of my career to advise what I believe will be the next generation of entrepreneurs, executives, and leaders. I firmly believe there are employees at VaynerX right now who will go on to be Fortune 500 CMO’s, direct Oscar winning films, and achieve a degree of career success far beyond their wildest dreams. I feel a profound sense of gratitude and responsibility for being able to help guide the careers of so many, and when that guidance begins to play out I get to see the true serendipity of life and business on display.

Swan Sit is someone whose friendship I value deeply and I’ve had the pleasure of having lots of thoughtful career conversations with her over the years. She has been an absolute force in the marketing and branding world. Achieving a corporate pedigree that many dream of, she is an executive at some of the world’s highest profile brands. As an Executive Director at Estée Lauder, she was early to adopt social media and eCommerce as others in the beauty space grew complacent. She’d go on to join the Revlon team as Vice President of Global Digital, overseeing digital innovation and massive launch campaigns. This set her up for her next venture at Nike as VP of Global Digital Marketing, where she was a part of the Emmy-winning “Dream Crazy” campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick and ran digital product, operations, and supply chain for the multi-billion dollar North American ecommerce business.

Somewhere between Revlon and Nike, Swan and I spoke about what her next move should be. What I knew to be true then, as I do now, is that she’s one of the most progressive business minds who truly understands the juxtaposition of Fortune 500 business and Day 1 entrepreneurship. She’s one of the few executives I’ve advised who has the creative DNA that allows them to make magic, unite teams, articulate a grand vision, and see beyond the quarterly numbers. Her EQ is as impressive as her IQ, and I knew it was only a matter of time before that would be on display for a much larger audience.

After her time at Nike, she went on to take a number of Board Director roles for publicly traded companies and advise several early stage companies like Ani Energy, where she serves as CMO and an Operating Partner at AF Ventures. Each of these experiences has set her up for the moment that will eventually make Swan a household name.

Last year, before anyone reading this heard of the platform you all know today as Clubhouse, Swan dove in head first. She spent countless hours on the platform, flexing her breadth of experience, deep relationships, and firm understanding of the social and digital space. In just under a year, she’s grown to 3MM followers on the platform, becoming one of the top 30 most followed people — even more than me. What’s most fun for me about that is, I know she’s just getting started.

That’s why it brings me great joy to announce that Swan will be signing with VaynerTalent, where we’ll help manage her next chapter and career. Swan will speak on stages alongside me, she’ll go on to write books, and have a long career as what I’m sure will put her in the conversation for one of the most celebrated interviewers of our time.

via GIPHY

It’s only fitting that the person to help me manage Swan’s career would be someone that has earned my trust and proven himself —  another person I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and guiding, and someone who I’ve seen a lot of myself in, Nick Dio.

Dio walked into the VaynerMedia offices almost a decade ago. He was a Jersey kid who tweeted at me endlessly and took an unpaid internship until he inevitably won over enough people at VaynerMedia to get a full-time job offer. Over that time, I’ve jammed with Dio within VaynerX, placing him in roles and experiences that would make him equal parts operational, creative, strategic, and executional. He’s proven his ability to earn trust, be loyal, and do right by others. Last April, I called Dio on a Sunday night and told him I was ready to relaunch VaynerTalent and that I thought he could be a very powerful Talent Manager. Without hesitation, he was ready to step into his next and possibly final role at VaynerX.

I give you the context of these life experiences for both Swan and Dio because it has been the serendipity of life and business that has led us to this moment. A high-profile executive who I adore matched with a hard-working Jersey kid, both of whom embody the qualities I look for in those I advise: empathy, kindness, compassion, and unwavering work ethic.

I wanted to share this with you all because like many things, I like being on the record, and as many times as I’ve been historically right about social platforms, technology, and business, I also am often right about people and their potential.If you want to follow Swan and her journey, you can follow her on Clubhouse, Instagram, and Twitter and reach out to her manager Nick Dio for any business, partnership, or collaboration opportunities ndiodato@vaynertalent.com.