Jet Swain
Founder of The Affection Economy
and creator of The Affection Advantage.
I help people, leaders, and organisations turn affection into their greatest advantage — proving it isn’t soft, it’s strategic.
From rural Australia to global boardroom
Jet Swain is a strategist, mentor, speaker, and the founder of The Affection Economy, a values-led leadership practice reshaping how we live, lead, and belong.
Raised on a seventh-generation merino sheep property in northwest New South Wales, Jet comes from a long matrilineal line of resilient women who taught her the power of grit, grace, and holding space for others. That inheritance of strength, care, and quiet defiance forms the foundation of her life and work.
Across 35 years in the creative industries, executive leadership, consulting, and purpose-driven design, Jet has worked at the intersection of business, human behaviour, and systems change. She has led advertising, design, architecture, technology, and management consulting projects, and has mentored hundreds of women and men through visibility, growth, and transformation.
Jet’s authority is not only professional — it’s deeply personal. A breast cancer survivor and solo parent who raised two daughters into powerful young women, she knows what it takes to rebuild when life strips you back to your core. Every challenge has sharpened her conviction that affection — care, connection, and courage — is not soft, it’s strategic.
Her work lives where heart meets strategy. Whether guiding an executive team, facilitating a workshop, delivering a keynote, or mentoring one-on-one, Jet’s focus remains the same: to lead with clarity, courage, and kindness — and to help others do the same.
She often returns to a Buddhist teaching: “We who follow the way are permitted to defend the innocent.” For Jet, it’s the perfect expression of affection in action — permission to be courageous, to disrupt when something isn’t right, and to hold both care and conviction at once.
Today, she calls this lens The Affection Advantage — a way of helping individuals, leaders, communities, and organisations uncover blind spots, embed belonging, and grow without compromise.
Personal writing — ‘She Who Holds the Map’
Alongside her work as a keynote speaker and founder of The Affection Economy, Jet shares essays through She Who Holds the Map — a memoir project honouring matrilineal memory, women’s stories, and resilience.
Why I founded the Affection Economy
I founded The Affection Economy because I’ve seen what happens when systems lose their soul. Values look good on paper, but without affection they fail in practice. I’ve sat in countless rooms where the words were there — but the culture was absent.
The Affection Economy gives language to what I’ve always known: affection, connection, and kindness aren’t extras. They’re survival strategies — the foundation of trust, belonging, and long-term impact.
This framework is drawn from lived experience — years in boardrooms, navigating burnout, surviving cancer, raising daughters as a solo parent, and guiding leaders across industries. It’s also shaped by generations of matriarchs who taught me grit, grace, and courage.
Today, The Affection Economy sits at the heart of my work. It’s not just a concept — it’s the operating system I bring into every keynote, workshop, advisory, and mentoring session. It’s how I help people and organisations uncover blind spots and grow without compromise.
Helping leaders and teams turn affection into their greatest advantage
I work with leaders, communities, and organisations to embed courage, clarity, and kindness into the way they live, lead, and grow.