Look who just landed one of advertising's most coveted jobs - CCO at Mother

Perhaps the first thing you need to know about Felix Richter is that he’s been hired by Robert Saville.

Saville is the man with the most impeccable, infallible taste for hiring world-class creative talent. So one of the best measures of Richter is that he’s been handpicked by Saville.

You also need to know that Richter is the new chief creative officer of Mother London and a global creative partner, one of the most coveted jobs in the business.

That’s Richter on the left of the illustration at the top of this page (Mother doesn’t do PR headshots, joy), alongside planning partners Chris Gallery and Katie Mackay-Sinclair. The trio will run the London agency.

Richter is currently co-chief creative officer of the mighty Droga5 New York (with Tim Gordon), Ad Age’s Agency of the Year in 2021 and whose founder David Droga is himself no slouch when it comes to hiring the best-of-the-best.

This particular best-of-the-best grew up in a village near Hamburg called Kummerfeld, which literally means Sadfield - so-called because legend has it wolves roamed the fields and occasionally ate the farmers' children. Despite having some creative tingles – he loved, and still does, drawing and painting - Richter started off studying law; being an artist would have been considered decadent back in Kummerfeld, he says.

Richter found out about the ad industry from cousins who were already in the business and signed up for the Miami Ad School in Hamburg. He joined Y&R as a copywriter in New York in 2009, jumping to Droga5 in 2011.

There he created the Cannes Lion Cyber Grand Prix winner “I Will What I Want” featuring Gisele Bundchen for Under Armour.

And the Film Craft Grand Prix winner “Rule Yourself - Michael Phelps” also for Under Armour.

And like all the best creatives, his creativity can’t be confined to ads. In 2015 he partnered with Alexander Nowak and director Bjorn Ruhmann to create the music video trilogy FLORIAN for German EDM artist Paul Kalkbrenner.

By 2017 he’d earned Ad Age’s Creative Director of the Year crown.

Interesting quote: Richter told WorkingNotWorking magazine last year that: “I recently watched a documentary about a German painter named Neo Rauch who practiced a belief that I believe drives me and a lot of the staff at Droga5. The disgust of repetition. When you're a creative person and you do things over and over again, they get boring and you lose interest. On the flip side, there is something very exhilarating and exciting about doing things that you haven't done before, or that nobody has done before.”

Saville on Richter: “In addition to being an exceptional creative leader Felix is a truly special human being. We couldn’t be more excited about him joining Katie and Chris and the whole Mother family. He will challenge us to reach even higher creative standards but I also know he will bring his humility and integrity to bear on everything we do.”