Who

A fixture on the ad industry scene for two decades, the indefatigable Peter Arnell is the president of the Arnell Group, which is now owned by the ad conglomerate WPP.

Backstory

A Brooklyn native and Columbia dropout (although his official bio lists him as having graduated), Arnell got his start in the early '80s working for noted designer and Princeton professor Michael Graves. (His stint working for Graves may also explain why he lists a Princeton degree on his resume, too.) In 1985, Arnell and a co-worker, Ted Bickford, left Graves' employ to start their own company, Arnell/Bickford Associates. Pitching themselves as a hybrid design/advertising firm, Arnell and Bickford carved out a niche by applying their design sensibility across a variety of assignments, crafting ad campaigns and products alike and conceiving physical retail locations for clients. One of their early success stories was Donna Karan: The duo designed Karan's boutiques across the country in the late '80s and also created some of the brand's high-profile ads, including the massive black-and-white photos that dotted the city for several years. The firm expanded significantly in the '90s, amassing fashion and retail clients like Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf, Valentino, Banana Republic, Tommy Hilfiger, and Ray-Ban.

By the end of the decade, the Arnell Group (so renamed after Bickford's departure) had sprouted a number of offshoots such as PASS—which Arnell founded with record exec Steve Stoute to target the urban market—and Cultura, which was aimed at Latino audiences. In 2000, Arnell sold the firm to Interpublic. But in a surprising turnaround, he scrapped the deal just weeks later, buying back his stake from the ad giant before later flipping it to the John Wren-run conglomerate Omnicom. Today Arnell's company continues to be part of Omnicom empire—and he remains the firm's president and chief creative officer.

Of note

A tireless self-promoter and ad industry iconoclast, Arnell continues to land blue-chip companies as clients, and his talent for reeling in big fish has made him especially useful to Wren, who has used Arnell's relationships to his advantage to bolster Omnicom's client list. In recent years, Arnell's agency has done work on behalf of Sprite, Rockport, Chrysler, Bank of America, Reebok, and Fendi, and the hard-charging exec (he's been called the "Harvey Weinstein of advertising") continues to dabble in a wide variety of projects, from relatively mundane research assignments to actual product design work. In recent years, he's designed a line of fire extinguishers for Home Hero; styled Jacob the Jeweler's East 57th Street store to look like the inside of a gem mine; and worked with developer Bruce Ratner and architect Frank Gehry to develop billboards and signage for Atlantic Yards. In 2006, Arnell teamed up with his "longtime friend" Muhammad Ali to start GOAT Food and Beverage, a line of healthy snacks. ("GOAT" stands for "Greatest of All Time," in case you didn't catch that.) But he doesn't get everything right: His most famous blunder in recent years was putting Celine Dion behind the wheel of a Chrysler in a series of dewy-eyed ads that earned distinction as one of the biggest missteps by a major advertiser in recent memory.

The look

Arnell used to tip the scales at over 300 pounds, but has slimmed down to a svelte 150 in recent years. A few years ago he credited his weight loss to his sushi-heavy diet and daily trips to Hatsuhana, where he keeps a pair of personal chopsticks on hand.

Personal

Arnell has been married to former Vanity Fair staffer Sara Nolan since 1988. They live in a Katonah mansion they purchased from Tommy Mottola for $18.3 million in 2001. Previously they lived in a Tribeca penthouse, which Arnell sold in 2004 to Jay-Z for $6.85 million. The sale wasn't without some drama: Damon Dash was days away from closing a deal to buy the apartment until Arnell ironed out a deal with Jay-Z directly. The sale capped a protracted legal battle between Arnell and the other tenants in the building. Jay-Z first tried to purchase the apartment in 2002, but was thwarted by other residents of the building who posted flyers decrying the rapper's "criminal record and lifestyle of knives, guns and violence." Arnell and his wife unsuccessfully sued the meddlers for $10 million.