JUNIPER PARK\TBWA CEO DOING THE BRAVE THING
Jill Nykoliation Juniper PARK\TBWA
IF YOU WANT TO SEE WOMEN IN THE C-SUITE, FOCUS ON THE JUNIOR LEVEL AND SHOW THEM THE WAY UP. WE KEEP A KEEN EYE OUT FOR OUTSTANDING JUNIOR WOMEN AND ENSURE THEY ARE ACTIVELY MENTORED TO LEVERAGE THEIR UNIQUE GIFTS AND ASSERT THEIR CONFIDENCE. — JILL NYKOLIATIOIN, FOUNDER AND CEO, JUNIPER PARK\TBWA
Jill Nykoliation has never been one to shy away from changing the dynamics of a male-dominated advertising industry, using her unique leadership style to fuel business performance and innovation. In fact, she has managed to turn her role as founder and CEO of Juniper PARK\TBWA to her — and her employees’ — advantage.
One of three recipients in the WXN Canada’s Most Powerful CEOS Awards, Nykoliation has grown her company from six employees in 2007 to 150 in 2021. She also founded the company’s design studio, Le Parc; its precision marketing practice, Scalpel; and its content production company, Bolt Content, ensuring that Juniper PARK\TBWA stays ahead in the constantly evolving communications industry. These three ventures contributed to the company’s record revenue numbers in 2020 at a time when many organizations were struggling. She works with an impressive roster of leading North American brands and clients, including Apple, Capital Group, CIBC, Godaddy, GSK, Nissan, Pepsico and UNICEF, among others.
A core principle for Nykoliation is building and sustaining a “refounding” culture. “We challenge ourselves to refound our business every couple of years. That means letting go of the old and embracing the new. With our refounding mindset, we lean into what’s coming. I am always telling my team, ‘notice what’s ending and let it. Notice what’s emerging and step into it.’ It’s okay to let things end.”
Her new approach to leadership was sharpened by an especially important turning point for Nykoliation, when she was diagnosed with mercury and lead poisoning four-and-a-half years ago. “That diagnosis changed me as a person, and as a leader. It made me look at my personal style. Kindness towards myself, my team and all other facets of life became a core principle.”
She made the decision to balance the masculine and feminine leadership traits, bringing kindness, gratitude and collaboration to her workplace to further business performance and innovation. “Sometimes, gifts
come wrapped in crappy packages. My illness opened a new dimension I had never explored before. Looking back, I am grateful that it happened.”
Nykoliation lives by Marian Wright Edelman’s quote, “you can’t be what you can’t see”, having learned long ago that others benefit when female executives make their presence known. “Luckily, I had a very powerful female role model at Kraft Canada, where I worked with thenceo Irene Rosenfeld. I knew at the time that my access to her was special and shaped my belief in the importance of giving spotlight to female leaders.”
She is deliberate about being visible at the front to inspire and help other women thrive and advance, driving inclusion and championing
diversity in the workplace that reflects the society as a whole.
Over the past few years she has taken great pride in defying industry norms in the makeup of her agency. Today, Juniper PARK\TBWA is made up of 54 per cent women and 32 per cent BIPOC, with a strong representation of people who identify as LGBTQIA2S+, from C-suite to entry level. Almost half (47 per cent) of employees are from outside of Canada.
“Four years ago, we set a goal to reflect the cultural makeup of Toronto, where 51 per cent of people are not from Canada,” she explains. “Today, we have a beautiful mix of cultures, identities and traditions and have reached a level where people can feel comfortable to bring their whole selves to work. Diversity brings better ideas, and improves work.”
In 2020, she also launched Trampoline, a branding incubator program for Bipoc-owned small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMES), combined with an accelerator mentorship program for aspiring BIPOC creatives. She also committed Juniper PARK\TBWA as a pledged member to the Black-north Initiative.
While much is said about getting more women into executive roles, Nykoliation believes support for women needs to start earlier. “A provocative study by Mckinsey said that the fallout for women was not about getting into the C-suite. The biggest fallout was between "ntry level and manager. If you want to see women in the C-suite, focus on the junior level and show them the way up. We keep a keen eye out for outstanding junior women and ensure they are actively mentored to leverage their unique gifts and assert their confidence.”
As a female-led agency, Nykoliation feels her agency is uniquely positioned to help support women’s issues beyond the workplace. “I know there is work to be done here. We can use our lens to shine a light on things that other agencies, which do not have our gender makeup, are not able to see as easily.”
For the past seven years they have worked extensively with women’s causes and organizations, including the award-winning Signal for Help viral marketing campaign for the Canadian
Women’s Foundation. The agency developed a hand signal for women trapped in violent homes who can’t speak freely to ask for help. This life-saving initiative spread across over 40 countries, in more than 20 languages and 2.7 billion impressions with zero media investment. Most recently, the signal was used to save an abducted teenager in the U.S., when a driver passing by recognized the signal and called for help.
Nykoliation and her team also lead multiple campaigns for YWCA Canada, the nation’s single largest provider of shelter to women and children fleeing domestic and sexual violence.
Nykoliation is passionate about bringing mental wellness to the forefront in her workplace. She approaches her employees’ mental wellness as the agency’s most important “client”, embracing strategies to help them thrive, such as hosting all-agency meetings once a week to discuss how everyone, including herself, is feeling. “How I communicate has drastically changed over the last year and a half. My weekly talks with our team are precise, intimate and ultra-accessible. This has had a cascading effect on our culture and performance,” she says.
She considers health and well-being to be a cornerstone of a successful workplace. “I want people to be brave at work and do inspiring and innovative things. But to be brave, people need to feel safe, seen and valued. The pandemic put us all behind computer screens, which makes it more important to ensure those people feel seen. We work hard so that people know their contributions matter and we are grateful that they’re with us.”
Nykoliation’s next goal is to leap out of the pandemic with her team and clients, and her leadership style has her well-poised to do this. “I will continue to grow and empower leaders rather than workers. When you grow people into leaders, greatness happens.”
The most defining trait of Nykoliation’s leadership philosophy is the importance of kindness and generosity in business.
“I’ve learned that you can be a high-performance and forward-leaning organization and do it with kindness, generosity and gratitude. Performance doesn’t have to be cutthroat, and kindness doesn’t have to be at the expense of performance.”