Pierach is the founder of Fast Horse, a Minneapolis-based integrated creative communications agency he established in 2001. The agency boasts a client roster that includes a wide variety of local, regional, national and even international companies and organizations, including Heineken, Audi and Schwan’s. Pierach is accountable for the firm’s overall strategic and creative product on behalf of clients.

Under Pierach’s direction, Fast Horse has executed national-award-winning work, including three Cannes Lions, six Effies, the advertising industry’s highest award for effectiveness, a Sports Clio, four Reggies, as well as the public relations industry’s highest awards, including a Silver Anvil, PR Week Award, a Global Sabre and a Gold Quill. Fast Horse has been cited among the best Advertising and Public Relations firms in Twin Cities Business Monthly’s  “Best of Business” for eight consecutive years.

The firm has been listed numerous times among the “Best Places to Work” by both Minnesota Business Magazine and the Mpls/St. Paul Business Journal.  It has also twice been listed among the Inc. 5000 fastest growing private companies in America.  In 2013, it was also among 10 companies in Minnesota presented with the prestigious Jefferson Award for corporate giving.

Pierach also co-owns two highly acclaimed restaurants in the Twin Cities. He opened Herbst Eatery & Farm Stand, a chef-driven neighborhood restaurant and market, in St. Paul with his wife in May of 2023. He also launched Tilia with his friend and James Beard-nominated chef Steven Brown in 2011. Tilia was named “Best New restaurant” by Minnesota Monthly in 2011, was honored as the “Outstanding restaurant” winner at the 2013 Charlie awards, and was named the Twin Cities’ “Best Neighborhood Restaurant” by the StarTribune in 2014.  In 2019, it was also named one of the “13 Most Influential Restaurants of the Past Decade” by the StarTribune.

Prior to launching Fast Horse, Pierach was an executive vice president in the Minneapolis office of Weber Shandwick, which he joined as an intern in 1989. Pierach headed the firm’s Consumer & Lifestyle Practice Group in North America, a role that made him part of the agency’s Global Leadership Team.

An active adviser to numerous non-profit and community organizations, Pierach served for nine years on the Board of Trustees of the University of Minnesota Foundation, most recently chairing the Development Committee.  He has also served on the Board of Directors of Milkweed Editions, the nation’s largest independent literary publisher, and has chaired the Board of Advocates of the University of Minnesota’s 40-person, student-run agency, Backpack. He currently serves on the Sunrise Banks Advisory Board.

In 2004, Pierach was chosen as one of The Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40,” an award recognizing accomplishments of young Twin Cities business leaders, and in 2013, was listed among “100 Minnesotans You Should Know” by Twin Cities Business Monthly.  He was the 2019 recipient of the “Award for Excellence,” the highest alumni award presented annually by the University of Minnesota’s prestigious Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication and was given a 2019 “Alumni Service Award,” bestowed annually by the University of Minnesota to those who have had a “major impact” on the University.

A champion of diversity and equity in the workplace, in 2018 Pierach founded “The Battle” — an annual Minneapolis advertising industry fundraising event which has thus far generated over $60K in scholarship funds supporting diverse students seeking a career in the field.

A citizen of both Germany and the United States, Pierach holds a B.A. from the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He also is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, having completed the two-year Owner/President Management program in 2022.  He lives in St. Paul with his wife, Angie, and two teenage children, Johanna and Elliot.