Pele Cortizo-Burgess Joins Grey New York as Chief Strategy Officer

NEW YORK, Feb. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Jim Heekin, Chairman and CEO of Grey Group, today announced that Pele Cortizo-Burgess has joined the agency's flagship office as Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer, a new position.

This appointment completes the senior leadership team Heekin has recruited in recent years to drive the successful transformation of the New York office.  Cortizo-Burgess will work closely with Heekin, who heads the New York office; Tor Myhren, Chief Creative Officer of Grey New York and Suresh Nair, Global Director of Strategic Planning for Grey Group.

"We've created this new role and recruited Pele for it because of his incredibly rich and diverse career which goes much deeper than advertising," said Jim Heekin.  "He will integrate planning more deeply into the creative process, blaze fresh trails in thought leadership and add tremendous bench strength to our accomplished senior management team."

Pele Cortizo-Burgess comes to Grey New York from ITV in London, the biggest commercial television network in the UK, broadcasting the most talked about television and making major contributions to the UK's culture, economy and communities.  During his three year tenure, he set up one of their most important initiatives to promote innovation and content development within the network: ITV Imagine.  He was later named Director of Creative Strategy for ITV Studios and was responsible for working to identify and implement the "vision, mission, purpose and values for the ITV Global content division" as well as creating the content makers' global identity which was rolled out around the world in 2009.

Earlier, Pele served for two years as Executive Vice President, Director of Planning and Research at FCB New York.  His brief was to rebuild the department into a vital, dynamic and accountable force fully integrated into the creative process on high profile accounts like Diet Coke, Motorola, MetLife and ONDCP.  This was reflected in the department being recognized with both Effie recognition and Jay Chiat Planning awards.

In his diverse career, Pele has worked as a Senior Consultant and Strategist for Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve, the futurist and trend guru's consulting firm.  While there, he was a key part of the work that helped reposition Tylenol for a new audience, he led some of the most critical work in understanding the Boomer Market for McNeil as well as providing insight and trends for Nike.

While at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners as Planning Director, Pele was the lead planner for the long running, iconic "Got Milk" campaign, as well as leading global planning efforts for Goodyear and Elizabeth Arden.  He has also held senior planning positions at TBWA/Chiat/Day San Francisco, where he was part of the team that launched PlayStation's PS2 and at St. Luke's in London working on No7 Cosmetics and the Midland Bank.

Originally from the South Pacific, Pele is a graduate of Victoria University having studied Social Policy and Criminology. An established photographer, he co-founded the 'the gift shop' a non-profit gallery in London's East End to support and celebrate up and coming artists.

Tor Myhren said, "Pele will be an amazing asset for Grey and embodies all the qualities of the creative culture we're building."

Grey New York posted a record new business performance in 2009, winning such high-profile clients/brands as the NFL; T.J. Maxx; America's Natural Gas Alliance; Diageo's Ketel One and Don Julio; GSK's Tums, Citrucel and Fiber Choice; Bosch Purolator; Sargento Foods; Mayflower/United Van Lines and Allianz.  In 2010, ADVERTISING AGE named Grey New York to its prestigious A-List, which honors the best in the business, and FAST COMPANY named Grey New York to "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies" list.

GREY| Famously effective since 1917. Grey New York is the flagship and largest office of Grey, a unit of Grey Group (http://www.grey.com.) Grey Group ranks among the largest global communications companies. Its parent company is WPP (NASDAQ: WPPGY). Grey New York's blue-chip client roster includes many of the world's best known companies: Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Diageo, Darden Restaurants, Wyeth, Canon, 3M, Eli Lilly, Dairy Queen, E*Trade, NFL, TJ Maxx and Sargento Foods.

SOURCE Grey