Rich Pieczynski — Master Strategy Plan | Voice & Strategy Lab
Prepared by Voice & Strategy Lab · Built from Public Voice DNA

Rich
Pieczynski.
The Integrator.

24 Years of Burnett. A Lifetime of Service.

This document demonstrates what happens when we extract your voice from every public signal — podcasts, syllabi, faculty pages, student testimonials, portfolio copy, radio appearances — and synthesize it into a strategic operating system. This is your voice. We just organized it.

24
Years at Leo Burnett
3
Universities Teaching
4.3
Student Rating / 5
4,000
Households (Old St. Pat's)
01 · Professional Identity

The Man Who Fixed Things.

Rich Pieczynski is a straight-shooting business storyteller who spent 24 years inside Leo Burnett and Arc Worldwide — rising from entry-level account management to Senior Vice President leading the Whirlpool agency of record — then deliberately pivoted into mission-driven marketing, Catholic media, and university teaching.

He now serves triple duty: Director of Marketing & Communications at Old St. Patrick's Church (Chicago's oldest public building, 4,000 member households), adjunct instructor at Loyola University Chicago and University of Illinois, and strategic marketing consultant for Catholic nonprofit media reaching millions nationally.

Brand portfolio: McDonald's, Kellogg's, United Airlines, Whirlpool, Maytag, Allstate, USPS, Walmart, Sealy, 7-Up, Amoco, Ad Council, United Healthcare. The story isn't the brands. The story is what he did with them — and what he chose to do next.

I'm a straight-shooting business storyteller with a reputation for fixing Client/Agency relationships through process upgrades, actionable insights, creativity and rebuilding trust through collaboration.

Rich Pieczynski — Professional Bio, Carbonmade Portfolio
02 · Voice DNA Profile

How Rich Actually Sounds.

Voice DNA isn't what someone says on their resume. It's the pattern beneath — sentence structure, metaphor domains, emotional register, the ratio of formal to informal.

Primary Voice Mode
Mentor Over Coffee. Conversational warmth with earned authority. Students call him "Prof. Pie" — and he puts it on the class schedule. Provides his personal cell phone number with hours.
Formality Ratio
60% Informal / 40% Formal. Signs off syllabi with "GOOD LUCK….. BE CURIOUS AND ASK WHY!" But demands boardroom-quality presentation decks and zero tolerance for late work.
Metaphor Domains
Military/Combat: "battle-tested" — Construction/Repair: "fixing," "rebuilding," "woven into DNA" — Nurture/Growth: "growing young professionals" — Food: "Don't try eating the elephant in one bite"
Signature Phrases (Verified)
"Right message, right place, right time." • "Do more with less." • "Woven deep into my DNA." • "Developer of talent for 25+ years." • "Purposeful, human solutions." • "Be curious and ask why!"
Emotional Register
Primary: Warm, Authentic, Collaborative, Mentoring. Secondary: Pragmatic, Experienced, Humble. Tertiary: Dad-joke humor, faith-informed, family-first. Students: "biggest heart," "typical funny dad kind of guy."
03 · Values & Operating Philosophy

The Architecture Underneath.

Rich Sounds Like
Your best professor who also ran a $100M account
Someone who admits when they're still learning
A Midwesterner who means every word he says
The guy clients called when the relationship was broken
Faith expressed through action, not performance
"Prof. Pie" — accessible enough for a nickname
Rich Does Not Sound Like
A personal brand influencer optimizing for reach
An academic theorist with no field experience
Someone selling you on their methodology
Corporate jargon on autopilot
A retired exec coasting on old credentials
Heavy-handed about faith in professional settings
01 · Servant Leadership
"Woven deep into my DNA is do more with less, be an active listener, offer purposeful, human solutions, and be a servant leader." Every career move since Burnett confirms it. "Developer of talent" is the title he gave himself — above SVP.
02 · Collaboration Over Competition
"Fixing Client/Agency relationships through rebuilding trust through collaboration." Sequence: process → insights → creativity → trust. Syllabus: "Advertising is a team business." Church: "Pray with us, serve with us, share with us."
03 · Active Listening
Students: "He values your input in class." Self-evaluations 3X per semester. Listening isn't politeness — it's the mechanism by which he reads rooms and fixes broken relationships.
04 · Knowledge Transfer
"For me, it's about transferring my knowledge & experience to the next generation." MS at 50+. 10+ years James Webb Young Advisory Board. Sandage Symposium speaker four times. Three universities simultaneously.
04 · The Owned Paradoxes

Tensions That Generate Energy.

Rich doesn't articulate these as paradoxes. He lives them. These tensions aren't problems to resolve — they're creative friction that produces authenticity.

McDonald's, Whirlpool, AllstateCatholic Church, Parish Ministry
Faith × Commerce
Twenty-four years managing Fortune 500 brands then repurposing those exact skills for Catholic evangelization. Analyzes Super Bowl ads on Catholic radio as "Marketing Guru." Doesn't reject his advertising past. Redeems it.
SVP, 25-Year VeteranNew Professor, MS at 50+
Expertise × Humility
Early student review: "He was learning to teach." Later: "Best professor at Loyola." That growth arc IS the paradox — it models lifelong learning rather than fixed expertise.
Do More With LessRebuild Through Collaboration
Efficiency × Relationship
Trust-based collaboration ultimately creates efficiency by reducing conflict. The shortcut is doing the relationship work first.
Three UniversitiesFull-Time Marketing Director
Teaching × Doing
Most practitioners who teach stop practicing. Rich maintains both. Four Chicago Marathons. The man runs on endurance.
Persuasion CraftPurposeful Human Solutions
Advertising × Authenticity
"Straight-shooting" counters the manipulation stereotype. Apply persuasion skills to causes that serve genuine human good.
05 · Strategic Brand Philosophy

Right Message. Right Place. Right Time.

Rich's brand philosophy rests on a deceptively simple foundation — fundamental communication principles remain constant while technology changes channels. The word "still" carries all the weight.

Strategic Sequence
Process → Insights → Creativity → Trust. Relationship infrastructure precedes creative excellence. Creative brilliance cannot overcome broken foundations. Trust is the outcome, not the starting point.
Differentiation Method
Emotional AND rational connection. For Whirlpool: "target analysis, product storytelling, and integrated digital & retail programs." Not one or the other. Both.
Category-Agnostic
Same principles: McDonald's, Whirlpool, Catholic radio, parish communications. Framework: audience → message → channel → measurement. Category is just context.

It's still right message, right place at the right time.

Rich Pieczynski — On digital transformation not changing fundamentals
06 · Proof Trail

Evidence. Not Claims.

Teaching Impact
4.3/5 Loyola. 90% take again. "Best professor at Loyola." "I always left inspired." Three universities simultaneously.
Agency Career
Entry-level to SVP, 24 years. Whirlpool AOR: 100th Anniversary, Designed to Simplify, print-to-digital, Lowe's partnership. Maytag Man refresh. Crain's covered SVP promotion.
Church Output
5+ million minutes streamed annually. Shamrock'n, Broadway on Adams, Emerald Ball. Weekly Crossroads to 4,000+ households. Membership reframed from "parishioner" to "member."
Network Resilience
Survived Leo Burnett layoff. Returned through network. The proof point for his networking philosophy: relationships sustain you when systems fail.
Academic Commitment
MS from U of I at 50+. 10+ years James Webb Young Advisory Board. Sandage Symposium speaker 2015, 2019, 2020, 2022. Four Chicago Marathons.
07 · What We Build from Here

The Codex Menu.

Everything above was extracted from public signals. Imagine what we build after a 30-minute Voice DNA call.

01
Foundation
The Voice Codex
5 voice pillars, tone-by-context grid, vocabulary guide, banned language, AI master prompt, pre-publish checklist, Zen Validation framework.
353+ ParagraphsDOCX
02
Executive Positioning
Authority Brand System
Statement of Truth. LinkedIn Architecture. 30-Day Calendar. Speaking Bio Suite. Outreach SOP.
7 DeliverablesHTML + DOCX
03
Content
CEO Megaphone — LinkedIn Strategy
30 days Rich-voice posts. Advertising wisdom, faith-in-practice, mentorship. Video prompts. Super Bowl commentary framework.
30 PostsLinkedIn
04
Speaking
Speaking Engagement Codex
Three keynotes: "Faith × Commerce." "Why Fixing Precedes Creating." "What 24 Years Taught Me." Full outlines + speaker one-sheets.
3 KeynotesHTML + DOCX
05
Nonprofit
Cause Codex — Old St. Pat's
Grant-ready positioning. Case-for-support. Donor comms. Event playbooks. Crossroads voice guide for staff.
Grant-ReadyEvents
06
Academic
Org Codex — Teaching Portfolio
Teaching philosophy doc. Published case studies: Whirlpool, United Ted, Maytag Man. Structured for Ad Age and academic journals.
Case StudiesPublishing
07
AI
Operator Codex — Agent Stack
AI agents trained on Voice Codex. LinkedIn, newsletters, events — all in Rich's voice. Human-in-the-loop. Audit trail.
AI AgentsMulti-Role
08
High-Stakes
Submission Codex
Board apps, nominations, awards, tenure materials. 30-minute call. Zero-edit acceptance rate.
ApplicationsAwards
09
Measurement
Discovery in Motion — Analytics
Pre/post metrics: LinkedIn, speaking pipeline, media, sentiment, parish engagement. Quarterly dashboards.
DashboardsROI

This Was Built Without a Conversation.

Everything in this document came from public sources. Imagine what happens when we extract the voice you use in rooms, on calls, in classrooms, and in ministry. That's when the real Codex gets built.

Book a Discovery Call

Voice & Strategy Lab · Built by Randy Kohn · AI to Show Up Human · voicestrategylabs.com