Ogilvy Names Rafael Rizuto Chief Creative Officer for North America

The creative leadership carousel continues to turn. David Lubars recently announced his retirement after four decades at BBDO. Chris Beresford-Hill, who had been at Ogilvy as president of advertising for North America, left there to replace Lubars at BBDO. Now, Dentsu Creative chief creative officer of U.S. and LATAM, Rafael Rizuto, has departed Dentsu to take the chief creative officer for North America at Ogilvy.

At Ogilvy, Rizuto will be responsible for the agency’s creative product across its capability areas in the U.S. and Canada, one of Ogilvy’s leading global markets. He returns to Ogilvy having worked for the agency twice before, first in Dubai then again in his native Brazil.

Rizuto has also spent time at at BBH, TBWA’s 180LA, Leo Burnett, and most recently at Dentsu Creative. Rizuto also ran his agency from 2017-2020, TBD in San Francisco.

“An extraordinary talent and incredible human being, Rafa is someone I have admired for so long. Like Ogilvy, he believes in creativity’s ability to drive business—it’s an ability he has proven across his work, at agencies and as an entrepreneur. I am overjoyed at his return to Ogilvy, and for all the ways he will add to our work,” said Liz Taylor, global chief creative officer at Ogilvy.

Rizuto told ADWEEK that being back at Ogilvy is like coming home, and he is excited to collaborate with the talent at all the North American offices.

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“The best creative leaders are the ones who can recognize talent everywhere, and create an environment that they can do their best, versus trying to impose like a vision,” said Rizuto of his leadership style. He added that the ultimate test of a creative leader is to be able to recognize a great idea, no matter where it comes from, and that Ogilvy has the right talent and client roster to make great creative work.

Rizuto decided to make the move from Dentsu at a time when that agency has gone through multiple changes, including blending all its creative shops into Dentsu Creative in 2022, parting ways with global chief creative officer Fred Levron, the departure of CEO Wendy Clark from Dentsu International and the naming of Abbey Klaassen as U.S. CEO.

Rizuto is proud of the work he has put out at his previous agencies, including Dentsu and BBH, where he got to work closely with founder Sir John Hegarty, but he said the opportunity to take the CCO position at Ogilvy North America was too good to pass up.

“An agency is not composed of just a creative department. It should be a creative agency,” said Rizuto, adding that Ogilvy, under Taylor and global CEO Devika Bulchandani embraces leading with creativity. It also doesn’t hurt that Ogilvy is on a hot streak, with numerous client wins over the last year, a successful Super Bowl and being named ADWEEK’s Global Agency of the Year.

The business of creativity

As a creative leader, Rizuto embraces change. Tools like AI and digital tactics are all part of the constant change in the industry. When he started his career in Brazil 22 years ago, he remembers being an intern and talking with an art director who told him that it was the worst time to get into the industry because of all the disruption from the internet and digital trends.

“Another friend of mine said, ‘advertising is the only business that writes its obituary.’… I’m excited about AI. I think we’re going to go back to creativity at its core, and I think AI is just another tool in our toolbox,” said Rizuto.

But agency creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It must serve the client, so he sees that you can’t talk about creativity without having good business acumen. Running his agency helped give Rizuto a perspective outside of the creative department and showed how he could use creativity to lead an agency, which he sees at Ogilvy.

Rizuto said that Ogilvy’s leadership sees its people as being a differentiator. The technology, AI and capabilities can be commoditized, but people can’t.

“Creativity is our force, and we shouldn’t relegate it,” said Rizuto.

Rizuto has won numerous awards, including a Cannes Young Lions in 2008 when he, a Brazilian who spoke little English, represented the Middle East for Ogilvy in Dubai. His work since then has included Cannes Grand Prix campaigns like Boost Mobile’s “Boost Your Voice,” Unicef’s “UNfairy Tales” and Eurofarma’s “Scrolling Therapy,” as well as Airbnb’s first-ever global campaign, “Views,” and Coca-Cola’s largest-ever Latin American campaign pushes. At Dentsu Creative, he served as creative lead on T-Mobile and helped spur a 60%-plus conversion rate on new business in 2023, with client wins including Apple TV+, Lowe’s, Principal Financial, Walmart and Subway.

Rizuto helped 180LA become the most awarded shop in all of TBWA’s Worldwide Network for two years in a row in 2016 and 2017 and helped pull in Ogilvy’s first-ever “Network of the Year” title in 2012 by contributing to Ogilvy Brazil’s 15 Cannes Lions that year.