NEW YORK — Grayling has hired MSL SVP Peter Harris as its US CEO based in New York, adding more tech clout to its leadership.

Harris, who begins on Jan. 1, was most recently SVP at MSL where was among the agency’s corporate and tech practice leads, as well as the global lead for the United Technologies account. He’ll report into global CEO Pete Pedersen, who formerly ran Edelman’s global tech practice. 

He joins Grayling amid substantial change as the firm strives to become more competitive in North America since Pedersen took the helm earlier this year. Since then, Grayling moved to a single profit-and-loss structure in the US and unveiled new branding.

Since consolidating its US operations, Grayling counts about 300 people in the region. Worldwide, Grayling has 53 offices and brought in about $132 million of fee income in 2012 -- down nearly 8% from the year prior; Atomic’s 2012 revenues were about $18.7 million. Including Atomic’s various outposts, Grayling now has 11 offices in the US.  

Harris will also be part of Grayling’s international board of directors, a leadership team that includes regional executives Loretta Ahmed (META), Wolfgang Lang (Western Europe) and Jan Simunek (CEE & Russia).

Prior to MSL, Harris worked at Ketchum, Access Communications (a Ketchum subsidiary) and Peppercom.