Judy Wald, a top headhunter and talent spotter, who shaped careers in advertising’s golden era and transformed the industry’s recruiting field, died Feb. 12 in Manhattan. She was 96.

Ms. Wald was a formidable Madison Avenue gatekeeper. From copywriters to top creative directors, everyone in the industry knew that the path to a new job often ran through her. “I believe she invented me,” said Jerry Della Femina, who founded his own leading agency and wrote a memoir that was an inspiration for the long-running television series “Mad Men.”

Ms. Wald was sometimes compared to that show’s fictional characters. She was a stylish, brash and supremely confident entrepreneur at a time when few women wielded executive power on Madison Avenue.