Mother has tapped Oriel Davis-Lyons as chief creative officer for the creative agency’s New York office.
Davis-Lyons joins from Spotify, where he served as head of creative. He is also the founder of The One School, a free, 16-week portfolio school for Black creatives that he runs in partnership with The One Club for Creativity.
In his new role, Davis-Lyons will oversee the creative output for clients including Target, Dave & Buster’s, Amica and Panera, among others.
“Oriel’s vision for our industry has a gravitational pull you can feel. He’s an entrepreneur at heart who has a proven record of harnessing creativity to change the world, and he’s the biggest believer in the next generation of talent,” said Teri Miller, president and partner of Mother in the U.S. in a statement.
Prior to Spotify, Davis-Lyons held creative roles at Droga5, R/GA, Colenso BBDO and Special Group. At Spotify, Oriel took a modern, social approach to marketing across a variety of projects, including the famed “Wrapped” end-of-year marketing campaign.
During the 2016 election, Davis-Lyons wrote a spot titled “Role Models” for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He was instrumental in continuing Droga5’s long-running “Seize the Awkward” platform in partnership with the Ad Council.
As a creative entrepreneur, Oriel founded a WFH-wear brand, Corpleisure, as well as founding The One School.
“To me, Mother has always felt less like an ad agency and more like a place where creativity is the core product and great advertising is just one of the ways it shows up in the world,” said Davis-Lyons in a statement.
Joe Staples, CCO and partner, Mother in the U.S. said in a statement: “Every decision we’ve made this year is to build Mother into a creative company for the next generation. Oriel Davis-Lyons is the perfect leader for this next chapter at Mother.”