Göran Åkestam was born in 1954, with a hairstyle he has stuck with ever since. Initially, he intended to become a journalist, but his father suggested advertising and marketing. Not a bad idea, he thought, and in 1974 he embarked on a marketing course at Berghs School of Advertising, which was not yet offering training expressly for copywriters. The following year, Göran got a job at Masius-Malmros & D’Arcy-MacManus after passing the entrance exam, which consisted of writing an ad for watchmaker Patek Philippe...Read more. His advertising career began in earnest at Aggerborg in 1976. For 13 years, he did award-winning work for Parker pens, Mercury outboard engines, the daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet and Lotto, for which he received his first Golden Egg. Aggerborg also developed business concepts and companies, such as Sportswear of Sweden (SOS). In 1989, Göran founded Åkestam & Falk together with Ola Falk. The following year, he became a partner at Rönnberg & Co, where he had creative responsibility for H&M and worked closely with AD Kerstin Mårtensson. In 1995, he put in a brief stint at Hall & Cederquist before taking on his greatest challenge – heading up and revitalizing Nord & Co, whose name was changed to Åkestam Holst in 1998. It developed into one of Sweden’s absolute top agencies during the first two decades of the 21st century, with clients like the post office, Pause Ljud & Bild, the Swedish Heart Lung Foundation and later SAS and IKEA. During this period, Göran demonstrated his mastery of the art of building and managing an agency in a period of dramatic change. As he put it, he crosspollinated his experiences from Aggerborg and Rönnberg in order to “build an agency culture that combines job satisfaction with strong competitive instincts”. Göran Åkestam’s long career in the industry has enabled him to win Golden Eggs during six straight decades.

– C.L.