RIESTER Announces New Chief Creative Officer in Preparation for Tom Ortega’s Departure in 2023.

Tom Ortega will step down as Chief Creative Officer and Partner at RIESTER effective December 31^st to take on the new role as Director of the Mulzet Center for Expression & Communication at the First Place AZ Global Leadership Institute. The Institute focuses on education, housing, business, healthcare, and policy for individuals living with autism and other neurodiversities.

For 30 years, Tom has been the creative heart and soul of RIESTER.  His contributions to our clients and our professional and personal lives have been immeasurable.  It’s hard to imagine RIESTER without Tom as our creative leader, but it is easy to envision Tom positively impacting thousands of people with his amazing talent and deep passion for helping others.

Replacing Tom as Chief Creative Officer at RIESTER required an international search to find someone with the same compassion for people, incredible intellect, non-stop conceptual ability, and vast creative credentials across numerous client industries.  RIESTER chose a wonderful person named Peter Buck to fulfill this role.

In his 20+ year career, Peter helped build trust, brands, teams, agencies, startups, and careers.  As Executive Creative Director for Spark44, Peter helped make Jaguar the fastest selling car brand in the US.  He helped Land Rover to increase brand loyalty to the highest level in two years and the best sales month in brand history.  As Executive Creative Director for Kastner & Partners, Peter helped Red Bull to achieve the highest market share of any energy drink in the world.  He also helped create social media campaigns used by Facebook and Google as best-in-class studies.  As Creative Director at Leo Burnett, Peter led campaigns for Diageo, Proctor & Gamble, Lufthansa, Kraft Foods, Zippo and Fiat.  Peter has won more than 60 creative awards at The One Show, D&AD, New York Festivals, ADC, Clio Awards and Effies.

Peter’s first day at RIESTER is today, and he will be working with Tom to learn about all our clients and transition the leadership of our creative department through the end of the year.