Jet Swain
Founder of The Affection Economy
I work at the intersection of values, leadership, and systems change — helping people and organisations turn affection into their greatest advantage.
Not as a mindset.
As a way of working.
I founded The Affection Economy to answer a question I kept seeing play out in boardrooms, teams, and communities:
What would work look like if we designed it around people — and still delivered results?
Affection, in this context, isn’t softness.
It’s attention, care, accountability, and responsibility in action.
From rural Australia to global boardrooms
I was raised on a seventh-generation merino sheep property in northwest New South Wales, shaped by a long matrilineal line of women who understood grit, grace, and the power of holding steady in hard seasons.
That inheritance — strength paired with care — underpins everything I do.
For more than three decades, I’ve worked across advertising, design, executive leadership, consulting, and purpose-driven transformation. My work sits where business, human behaviour, and systems meet — guiding leaders through complexity, growth, and change without losing their humanity or their edge.
I’ve led and advised across industries, including creative, corporate, government, and not-for-profit — supporting founders, senior leaders, and teams to make better decisions, faster, and together.
Authority shaped by lived experience
My authority isn’t only professional — it’s personal.
I’m a breast cancer survivor.
A solo parent who raised two daughters into strong, thoughtful women.
Someone who knows what it means to rebuild when life strips you back to what matters.
Those experiences sharpened my conviction that affection — care, connection, courage — isn’t an add-on to leadership.
It’s the strategy.
Whether I’m guiding an executive team, facilitating a workshop, delivering a keynote, or working one-on-one, my focus is the same:
to help people lead with clarity, act with conviction, and grow without compromise.
Why the Affection Economy exists
I founded The Affection Economy because I’d seen what happens when systems lose their soul.
Values look good on paper.
Without affection, they fail in practice.
I’ve sat in countless rooms where the language was right — but the culture wasn’t. Where performance came at the cost of trust. Where people burned out trying to belong inside systems that weren’t designed for them.
The Affection Economy gives language — and structure — to what I’ve always known:
Affection, connection, and kindness aren’t “soft skills”.
They’re survival strategies.
The foundation of trust, belonging, and long-term impact.
Today, The Affection Economy isn’t a concept — it’s the operating system I bring into every keynote, workshop, advisory engagement, and mentoring relationship.
Personal writing —
She Who Holds the Map
Alongside my leadership work, I write She Who Holds the Map — a memoir-in-essays exploring matrilineal memory, women’s stories, resilience, and legacy.
It’s where the personal threads live.
The lineage beneath the leadership.
What I believe
Affection and accountability belong together
Care is not the opposite of performance
Values only matter when they’re lived
Leadership is something you practice, not perform
Growth without compromise is possible — and necessary
If that resonates, we’ll work well together.