Peter Coughter has worked in the advertising and communications field for many years, including his role as a principal in the ad agency Siddel, Matus & Coughter for 20 years. Peter also worked as a TV director prior to that. In 1995, Peter left the agency he helped found and started his current enterprise, Coughter & Company, to help ad agencies and other companies learn how to more effectively present their ideas and business communication solutions to their clients. Peter's clients include most of the most influential advertising agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

Education and development of up-and-coming talent is of great importance to Peter. To that end, he's been a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's Brand Center since 1997 with an apparent mission to help students as well as professional creatives understand that they need to invest a portion of the time they spend in creating great work into learning how to present it in a way that ensures it actually gets used.

I first learned about Peter's work while I was filming a conversation with a creative director for The Creator's Journey. He was raving about Peter's book, "The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills That Win Business." I immediately bought and consumed it, and have been looking forward to the opportunity to have a conversation around the topic for the show.