"What's wonderful about our work is that it's so diverse and you're always solving problems," says Cutwater's Jennifer Golub. "I find the strongest producers have this innate vocabulary of visual imagery, of music, of travel experience. It's this insight that can be brought to any project. Those resources can be drawn upon, and it makes you very strong."

For Golub, that vocabulary encompasses not only advertising but also the arenas of art, architecture and filmmaking. As much as she is known for her Emmy-winning work as director, executive producer and art director on Apple's benchmark "Think Different" campaign during her 17-year tenure at TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles, she is also regarded for her volunteer work (Virgin Unite, Conscious Youth Media Crew, Rock The Vote), her teaching (she lectured at the Pratt Institute, The Society of Architectural Historians and The Museum of Architecture) and for her well-received book on architect Albert Frey, Albert Frey Houses I & II, the recipient of the prestigious Graham Foundation grant. Her natural curiosity and expansive knowledge base informs not only her work but garners the respect and trust of those who work with her.

"As much as creatives push limits," says Cutwater founder and executive creative director Chuck McBride, "Jennifer is slugging away trying to do the same thing and that's important from a producer's standpoint. As for our working relationship, we work in the most symbiotic way. We seldom have to speak but we both know what each other is saying."

As director of broadcast/content production of the newly established Cutwater, Golub oversees production for the agency's entire roster of clients, including Jeep, Ray-Ban, Motorola and Fox Sports.

That new role at Cutwater may have inadvertently led Boards' conversation with Golub down the path of some lousy water metaphors but, thanks to Golub's nipping it in the bud, none of them will be printed here, which is a true indication of an individual worthy of the tag of excellence in advertising: someone who knows when to put a stop to a bad idea.

I had a full scholarship at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I studied fine arts and film and got very frightened while studying the Russian Constructivists in art theory class because it suddenly dawned on me that I had to get out of there and get a job - I realized that studying Malevich art theory wasn't going to pay the rent. I started as a switchboard operator at EUE Screen Gems and was also a PA. So I was pretty well entrenched in production by the time I graduated college.

My story has been a thread of very special mentors and Charlie Capuano was the first. He was a producer at Saatchi & Saatchi and said that as soon as I was of legal age to work he would ask me to join his department. Then I followed him to Y&R. My next mentors, who I must express gratitude to, are Elaine Hinton and Richard O' Neill, who brought me into the fold at Chiat/Day in 1989.