Arick Wierson

Wierson played a well-documented role as an external advisor to the campaign of presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro who was elected President of Brazil in October 2018. with the campaign's strategic messaging and television advertising. In 2020, Washington Compol named Wierson as one of world's 100 most influential political marketers for his work on the Bolsonaro election.

In 2018, Wierson's name surfaced again in the Brazilian media as being in talks with several presidential candidates. Although it was initially widely reported in major Brazilian news outlets that a marketing and political consulting firm closely associated with Arick Wierson had been working to elect Brazilian businessman-turned candidate presidential candidate João Dionisio Amoêdo and the New Party (Brazil), multiple reports later indicated that Wierson was in fact advising the campaign of presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro who was elected President of Brazil in October 2018. Wierson advised the Bolsonaro campaign on its strategic messaging and television advertising. Analysts covering the race in Brazil credit Wierson with "softening" Bolsonaro's image and encouraging him to not attend the final debates. It is suggested that Wierson impacted the outcome of the race was by repositioning Bolsonaro as more moderate and inclusive in an effort to lower the candidate's negatives.

In the spring of 2018, in the wake of a failed attempt to bring the 2023 World's Fair to Minnesota, it was reported that Wierson, former General Mill's Chief Marketing Officer Mark Addicks, and publicist Kathryn Tunheim joined forces with The Medical Alley Association, The Mayo Clinic, and Walmart to launch Manova: The Global Summit on the Future of Health.

Wierson was married to Fabiana Mesquita-Wierson, a former executive at Bloomberg, LP. They have one daughter, Isabella Wierson. He later remarried Hermenegilda Vianeke in 2016 and together they have two children, Haakon and Gabriella.

In 2011, it was reported that Wierson was leading an effort to open the first large-scale modern department store in Angola to be called Luanda Fashion Center. Luanda Fashion Center was acquired by the Brazilian retailer, Morena Rosa Group in 2014.

Wierson is known to be close to maverick political strategist Bill Hillsman, who has asked Wierson to lecture in his courses at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University on several occasions. In June 2010, Brazilian Vice Presidential candidate and Federal Deputy Antônio Pedro de Siqueira Indio da Costa (Democrats) invited Wierson to advise him and Presidential candidate José Serra on media and political matters during the final months of the campaign before the October election. Wierson is said to have declined the invitation due to "ongoing engagements in Angola."

In 2009, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that Wierson was returning to the private sector.

In addition to the TV business, Wierson is also credited with leading a complete overhaul of WNYE-FM 91.5FM, with new formats for morning and afternoon drive-time programming, re-branding itself as "Radio New York" and in partnership with live coast-to-coast music feeds from Seattle-based alternative rock station KEXP. The announcement was seen as an aggressive move by the New York City Indie music community, causing broadcaster WFUV to take public on-air swipes at Wierson for having encroached on their market. On March 5, 2009, Wierson, along with NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, announced that WNYE, after being in Brooklyn since 1938, was moving its radio broadcast operations to Manhattan, and was unveiling a new digital transmitter, capable of transmitting multiple in-band HD radio streams.

In 2009, Mayor Bloomberg announced Wierson was stepping down as President of NYC Media Group, saying "Over the past seven years, Arick Wierson and his team transformed NYC TV into one of the nation's best television stations. After helping build the station virtually from scratch, Arick oversaw the merger of NYC TV with WNYE-TV and WNYE-FM, creating the largest local media group in New York that now reaches hundreds of thousands of people every day. NYC TV's 160 New York Emmy nominations and 42 awards serve as a testament to Arick's vision, tenacity, and leadership and to the excellence of the media group he was instrumental in creating. I have no doubt that Arick's entrepreneurial and creative talents, which helped him achieve great things at NYC TV will serve him well as he rejoins the private sector..."

Broadcasting & Cable Magazine described Wierson as "one of the most important people in New York media". Under Wierson, NYC TV expanded from a local cable operation to a broad array of broadcast, cable, production, online video and syndication entities, organized under the name of NYC Media. At his time at NYC TV, Wierson led the network to 42 NY Emmy Awards and over 100 National Telly Cable Awards. In addition to Secrets of New York, Wierson played a role in the creation of many of the network's original series' productions including $9.99, Eat Out NY, New York 360*, and The Bridge. In 2008, Wierson led NYC TV's digital media group to its first-ever Webby nominations.

At NYC Media Group (since rebranded as NYC Media), Wierson was vocal critic of traditional public broadcasting for second-tier stations in heavily saturated markets like New York City. In 2005, Wierson disbanded the station's long-held PBS status, enabling NYC TV's original shows to take over prime-time "It was smart not to be the 'fifth channel,' said Dalton Delan, executive vice president of WETA in Washington and producer of the PBS News Hour. You don't want to be the triple-A team. You want to find a new ballpark where you can be No. 1." In August 2006, Wierson, Unger and Bloomberg appeared in the NBC studios, joined WNBC General Manager Francis X. Comerford and former NBC Station Group President Jay Ireland in announcing a partnership between NYC TV and NBC flagship station WNBC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who began Bloomberg Television as part of his media empire, knew better than most the value of a city television station, his aides said."

In 2001, billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg recruited Wierson to aid him in his first bid to become the 108th Mayor of New York City. During the campaign, Wierson oversaw field operations which combined traditional electioneering and voter profiling databases, which political analysts point to as the campaign that ushered in a new era technically sophisticated, statistical, voter profiling for political operation in the country.

Wierson grew up in Excelsior, Minnesota and attended part of his high school years in the Middle East. He graduated from Minnetonka High School (1990), later graduating cum laude from Georgetown University (1994) with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Foreign Service. In 1997, Wierson, was named the Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar representing the State of Minnesota, which he used to receive his master's degree in Economics from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Wierson's career began as an investment banker, working for the World Bank, ABN AMRO Bank, and JP Morgan.

During his tenure at NYC Media working under New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Wierson led the flagship NYC TV station to 160 Emmy nominations, while personally being nominated on 29 different occasions for the role of Executive Producer in the creation of various programs. To date he has won five Emmy awards for his role as the Executive Producer of the nationally syndicated Secrets of New York as well one Emmy for his role as Executive Producer of the feature documentary film "Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace" which featured former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former Secretary-General of the U.N. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Dr. Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State and CNN's Wolf Blitzer, among other notables. The film deals with the 1979 Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt and the unlikely circumstances and behind-the scenes jockeying that led to its coming to fruition.

Arick Wierson (born November 23, 1971) is a six-time Emmy Award-winning American television and media executive, columnist, public relations strategist and international political consultant.