Seth Thomas Pietras oversees marketing, lead capture management and strategy creation for new business development. He employs the full-range of Qorvis’ in-house capabilities—from social media and interactive to research and message development—to produce innovative communications programs for Qorvis and its clients.
Pietras also manages strategic communications campaigns for several international clients, including the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He draws on extensive experience crafting and implementing integrated public affairs and public relations programs for sovereign clients, having worked with more than a dozen countries and foreign leaders.
- Pietras led the team that conceived of, designed and developed Qorvis’ award-winning “Navigating Washington” mobile app for iPhone and Blackberry. The app, named “Phone App of the Week” by The New York Times and endorsed by the city of Washington, DC as the best guide to the 2009 Presidential Inauguration, won a prestigious Webby Award for “Best Mobile App” from the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences. The Qorvis app beat 10,000 other entrants from more than 60 countries.
- As chief speechwriter at Qorvis, Pietras has worked with top executives at Fortune 500 companies, the heads of prominent international organizations, Nobel Laureates and various high-ranking government officials. He served as chief speechwriter for HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal Ibn Saud, former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, during a two-year listening tour throughout the United States and Europe.
- Pietras conceived of and launched QED, Qorvis’ internal editorial consultancy, which focuses on improving the level of writing produced by Qorvis for the company and its clients. QED takes advantage of Qorvis’ no-silo approach to draw on the firm’s broad writing talent to improve quality across the board.
- As a strategic consultant to the Action Sports Environmental Coalition (ASEC), Pietras helped coalesce a multi-billion dollar group of surfing, skateboarding and snowboarding manufacturers and retailers—including Quiksilver, Hurley, Sole Technologies, Element, Burton and others—to sign onto an environmental standard formulated by premier eco-consultancy MBDC. He also assisted ASEC’s leadership—which includes pro-skateboarder Bob Burnquist—testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
- As a result of his pro bono work for environmental non-profits, such as ASEC and the Sustainable Endowments Institute, Pietras has developed extensive experience advising organizations on developing “green” strategies and successfully engaging social media and social networking. He has developed environmental statements for major corporations, including Quiksilver, Inc.
- Prior to joining Qorvis in 2004, Pietras served as an officer and board member at Foreign Reports, Inc., a consulting firm which analyzes political developments highly relevant to energy markets, price formation and related macro-economic variables.
- Pietras was the News Editor for two publications at F-D-C Reports, a subsidiary of Elsevier Health Sciences. In this role, he reported on the international regulatory and finance issues facing the med-tech and bio-tech industries.
Education
Seth graduated from Williams College with a Bachelor of Arts in modern political history.
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/seththomaspietras
Twitter: @liketheclock
