Richard S.

New York, NY, USA

  1. Design
  2. Figma
  3. Design Leadership
  4. Director of Product Design
  5. Creative Agency
  6. Publishing

Design leader building world-class teams, systems, and AI-powered products

New York–based design leader with 20+ years crafting award-winning products for media, tech, and global consumer brands. I build and scale design organizations, design systems, and product experiences that drive trust, engagement, and revenue. I’ve led design at MTV News, The New Yorker, Medium, Kettle, and currently VP of Product Design at Forbes — partnering with Apple, Nike, The Obama Foundation, Adidas and others. I operationalize research & discovery, integrate LLMs/AI into roadmaps, and ha…
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Richard S.

Work

Experience

  • Forbes

    Forbes

    VP, Product Design

    Mar 2023 - Present

    Forbes Media is a global media, branding, and technology company, with a focus on news and information about business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership, and affluent lifestyles.

    • Lead a team of 14 multi-disciplinary Designers to systematically redesign all Forbes product surfaces - to maximize revenue impact and elevate Brand Identity and Equity — effectively growing our unique monthly users to 100M+.
    • Operationalize Research and Discovery: User Testing, Competitor and Data Analysis to inform Brand & User Experience Design decision-making.
  • Forbes

    Forbes

    VP, Product Design

    Apr 2023 - Nov 2025

    Official page of Forbes, the world’s leading voice for entrepreneurial success and free enterprise.

    • Led product design across Forbes' entire digital ecosystem, reporting to the Chief Innovation Officer as the organization's senior design executive.
    • Redesigned all major product surfaces, including the homepage (launched August 2025) and subscription checkout flow.
    • Redesigned global navigation, global search, article templates, topic pages, company profiles, marketing landers, crypto data landers, Forbes Games, preference center, editorial newsletters, and back-end CMS.
    • Pioneered AI feature development in partnership with Google Vertex AI starting in 2023.
    • Shipped a principled AI feature rollout governed by four design pillars: User-First, Seamless Integration, Transparency & Control, and Integrity by Design.
    • Features and products shipped include AI-generated "Today's Highlights" on topic pages, AI-generated live polls, and AI-enabled global search.
    • Built and led a 14-person internationally distributed team (US, Jordan, Armenia) from 6 designers, achieving 100% retention over 2.75 years.
    • Established clear leveling rubrics, growth pathways, design principles, and operating playbooks that defined how the team showed up every day.
    • Operationalized user research and discovery practices including usability testing, competitive analysis, and user interviews as standard practice across all projects.
    • Aligned and standardized discovery and design processes across all product pods, dramatically reducing process variation and increasing cross-functional velocity.
    • Led quarterly All Design Teams All Hands workshops uniting product, marketing, editorial, and sponsored content design teams — fostering design thinking, storytelling innovation, and company-wide craft standards.
    • Achieved 100M+ monthly unique users, the highest in Forbes history.
    • Drove 2x year-over-year engagement.
    • Achieved 3x newsletter open rate.
    • Delivered 14% year-over-year subscriber growth.
    • Maintained 100% team retention.
  • Kettle

    Kettle

    Design Director

    May 2021 - Oct 2022

  • Medium

    Medium

    Design Director

    Jan 2020 - Dec 2020

  • The New Yorker

    The New Yorker

    Design Director, Editorial Interactive

    Aug 2017 - Dec 2019

  • MTV News

    Design Director, Editorial Interactive

    Feb 2005 - Jul 2017

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