Colleen DeCourcy, Wieden + Kennedy global chief creative officer and president, is retiring from advertising. DeCourcy joined W+K in 2013 as global executive creative director and the agency’s creative reputation, begun by co-founders, Dan Wieden and David Kennedy in 1982, continued to soar under her leadership over the eight W+K offices.

Much of that work was for client, Nike, which the agency has held since its inception. Recent work includes the controversial, Dream Crazy, featuring Colin Kaepernick, which won a Cannes Lions Grand Prix in 2019 and the defiant stance against Covid, You Can’t Stop Us, which won a Film Grand Prix last year. DeCourcy’s leadership also helped the agency to produce great work for FFC and Coca-Cola and win new clients, Airbnb, Visa and Facebook.

Under her leadership, Wieden +  Kennedy was named Ad Age’s Agency of the Year in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

DeCourcy began her ad career as a receptionist. She joined Canadian agency, Saffer Cravit & Freedman in 1986. Her first creative role was at a small agency called ICE in 1998, when she became creative director, followed by Toronto digital agency, Organic, where she was chief creative officer and chief experience officer at JWT New York. In 2007, she became TBWA\Worldwide’s first chief digital officer until she formed her own social media content and design agency, Socialistic, where she was chief creative officer and chief executive officer. Then in 2013, she was hired by Dan Wieden, as part of his plan to step back from hands-on leadership at W+K. She was Wieden + Kennedy’s first global chief creative officer (2016) and became president also, in 2018.

She leaves the agency with a message for all. “The industry has to remember that we succeed because we’re creative people. That creativity often can get easily squashed against the concerns of time and money in business. And that if there is something that wins in this industry, it’s that we have always, almost blindly, believed that creativity could solve anything. And the second we deprioritise our own creativity, devalue it, we’re done.”