IDA 2024 NOW OPEN -- Final Deadline November 30, 2024
Shari Swan | International Design Awards Jury

SHARI SWAN
Founder and CEO – Mole in a Minute

Shari Swan is a third time entrepreneur, founder and investor and committed advocate of female founders and the start-up eco system. She is a global expert on consumer insights, brand strategy, innovation and design and has a passion for transforming data into actionable and highly relevant, creative business opportunities for corporations with the support of co-creation and expert online communities.

Shari is a former global marketing executive of Mexx International and Reebok International. At Mexx, she created and re-launched the brand communication in 40 countries. At Reebok, she played a fully integrated role, strategizing in product design, marketing, sales, research and strategic brand management in Europe and North America. As a past faculty member of the University of Amsterdam’s Fashion Institute, she received the single largest research grant to create a proposal for a branding think tank that united fashion students and companies worldwide.

Swan founded Streative Branding in 2003, an Amsterdam based, award winning global insight and design agency and later transformed the business into a global, online, agile platform that relaunched as Mole in Minute in 2016. Mole in a Minute is an automated collaboration platform that connects corporations to globally vetted and curated maverick freelancers, industry experts and creative talent (Moles, Mavens Makers) for research, strategy and design projects.

Shari is also an acknowledged global speaker on insight, innovation, co-creation and consumer behavior and it’s impact on the future of business and society. Aside from whispering into the ears of global senior executives at UEFA, Liberty Global, Royal Bank of Canada, News UK, O2, LCBO, Estee Lauder and others, Shari and her partner own and operate an award winning, boutique manor house in France; Manoir du Moulin.

What did you most enjoy about the IDA judging process?

The vast breadth and depth of concepts and ideas that have been presented in this year’s competition.

Was there one particular design which really stood out for you?

I was particularly taken with the amount of ingenious hygiene-design innovations that are a direct reflection of the current pandemic times we are living. I envision that this wave of new Covid-19 inspired designs will become a movement in the history books known as some form of Pandemic Pop, not unlike the DaDa or Impressionist movements.