Rick Boyko
Director & Professor, VCU Brandcenter

Rick Boyko, former chief creative officer and co-president of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, Inc., joined the VCU Brandcenter in July 2003 as its managing director.  In the three years since Boyko has become its director, the Brandcenter has evolved its curriculum to include, in addition to art direction and copywriting, two new tracks: communications strategy and creative brand management.

In 2005, the Brandcenter was ranked the #1 graduate advertising program in the country by Advertising Age's Creativity magazine. The Brandcenter was ranked #1 in all three categories: innovation, program quality, and graduate quality. During Boyko's tenure the student body has grown from 110 graduate students to 190, and from four full time faculty to 12.

Boyko has also reached out and received real assignments for Brandcenter students from companies such as Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, The Learning Channel, Tourism Industry of America, Business for Diplomatic Action, JWT, Newspaper Association of America, AICP, Virginia Tourism, and The Gettysburg Foundation.

Boyko began his career as an art director at Leo Burnett Chicago and moved to Chiat/Day Los Angeles in the 1980s. He joined Ogilvy & Mather/New York in 1989 and in 1997 he was named chief creative officer and co-president (with Bill Gray) of Ogilvy's $1.5 billion flagship New York office. The following year Boyko was also named North American chief creative officer.

While Boyko has won most every advertising award there is, he feels most proud of two accomplishments unrelated to advertising. First, in May 2001, in honor of what he achieved during his career, Boyko was awarded the prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honor. Then, in October 2001, in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, Rick conceived of and was the driving force behind Brotherhood, a tabletop book honoring the 343 firemen who perished. It sold more than 200,000 copies and the proceeds of $1.5 million went to the families of the firemen. In light of Brotherhood's contributions to the Fire Department of New York, Rick was designated an honorary deputy chief in the FDNY.

An active member of the VCU Brandcenter Board of Directors since 2000, he was honored on behalf of Ogilvy & Mather when they were inducted into VCU's Founders' Society.  He currently sits on the boards of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Butler Shine Stern & Partners, the Art Directors Club, The One Club for Art & Copy, Napster and is on the advisory committee of the Business for Diplomatic Action.