Executive Bios

Richard Dickson

President & COO, Mattel

Richard Dickson has been President and Chief Operating Officer since April 2015. From January 2015 to April 2015, he served as President, Chief Brands Officer. He served as Chief Brands Officer from May...

> Read more > Hide

Lisa McKnight

Executive Vice President and Global Head of Barbie & Dolls Portfolio

Lisa McKnight serves as Executive Vice President and Global Head of Barbie & Dolls Portfolio. In this role, McKnight leads a global team that’s focused on brand strategy, product development and marketing execution for the iconic Barbie brand. McKnight has been instrumental in evolving the brand to make it more relevant and compelling to girls and parents around the world, leading to consistently improved retail sales and deeper consumer engagement. McKnight has spoken at many conferences, including the Cannes International Advertising Festival, Fast Company Innovation Festival, WFA Global Marketer Conference, Most Contagious Summit, Brand Innovators and Bentonville Film Festival. She is also the 2016 recipient of AdWeek’s Brand Genius Award, and serves on the Boards of MAKERS Women and the Toy Industry Association Foundation. Prior to her current role, McKnight served as Senior Vice President and Global Brand General Manager for Mattel’s Monster High and Ever After High brands where she developed and led highly successful marketing, advertising and brand promotional activities. Under her leadership, the Monster High brand forged a breakthrough partnership with Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, which paved the way for numerous cross-promotional opportunities while delivering positive messages to girls everywhere. Previously, as Senior Vice President of Mattel’s North America Division, McKnight managed the business and marketing strategies for the entire Mattel brand portfolio, including Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price and Thomas & Friends, in the United States. McKnight held responsibility for pricing and retail channel strategies, media planning and buying, public relations, promotions and advertising for the market. Since joining Mattel in 1998, McKnight has several senior leadership roles with the company, including Vice President, Global Marketing, Barbie. In this role, she lead a highly successful brand re-launch tied to Barbie’s 50th anniversary. As a result of her efforts to improve the brand’s global positioning and cultural relevance, Barbie enjoyed four-consecutive years of sales growth. Earlier in her career, McKnight gained significant marketing and brand management experience with a number of leading global consumer brands. She held numerous positions with award-winning agencies, including Grey Worldwide, Foote Cone & Belding, Gardner Geary Cole & Young, where she represented clients like Bank of America, Fairmont Hotels and Taco Bell. In addition, McKnight helped lead marketing strategy for Gap Inc., where she oversaw numerous campaigns, including the Easy Fit Jeans campaign with the now-iconic LL Cool J spot, along with the highly-successful Khaki Swing campaign. McKnight is a native Californian and resides in Los Angeles with her husband Bill and their two daughters.

> Read more > Hide

Kimberly Culmone

Senior Vice President, Design Barbie and Fashion Dolls

Kim serves as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Design for Barbie and Fashion Dolls at Mattel Inc. She has held this position since February 2019. Kim and her award-winning team of product and graphic designers are committed to keeping the brands they steward innovative and reflective of the world kid’s see around them. Kim is entrusted with the creative direction of Mattel’s flagship brand Barbie – a category leader in innovation and a source of inspiration to children around the world for 60 years. Prior to her current expanded role, Kim was Vice President of Design for Barbie. From 2013-2019 she was responsible for all product and packaging for the brand. During that time, she helped launch the popular @BarbieStyle Instagram channel that now has over 2 million followers and unprecedented social media engagement within the toy industry. Kim also served as Vice President, Consumer Products Design from 2010 - 2013, setting the creative vision for style guide development and licensed product design for Mattel’s global girls’ brands, including Barbie, Monster High and Polly Pocket. In this role she led Mattel’s licensing design teams around the world and developed product in 45 categories in partnership with licensees in over 150 countries. Kim started her career at Mattel in 1999 as a designer for Barbie. Throughout her 20-year tenure at the company, Kim has maintained a creative process that emphasizes purpose-driven, human-centric design. As featured in the Hulu documentary Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie, in 2015 she led the design of the most ethnically diverse doll line in the brand’s history. That line included the introduction of three new doll body types - curvy, tall and petite. This bold product reinvention generated 5 billion media impressions, led to a TIME cover, was named one of the “Top 25 Inventions of 2016” by the magazine and received the Barbie brand’s first-ever “Doll of the Year Award”, a coveted honor from the Toy Industry Association. Today Barbie is the most diverse and inclusive doll line on the market. Kim resides in West Hollywood, California, and is originally from New Orleans, Louisiana. She holds design degrees from Louisiana State University and Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. Prior to joining Mattel, she co-founded and was creative director of the Los Angeles-based textile art studio, The Design Garage Inc. She is passionate about the advancement of women and girls, supports the arts and LGBTQ+ organizations in her community and serves on the board of directors for the Wright Institute Los Angeles, a mental health non-profit organization and clinic, Chickenshed NYC, a non-profit inclusive children’s theater company. She is a member of the D&AD Impact Council which recognizes products and creative ideas that are driving positive change and The Toy Association’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

> Read more > Hide

Robert Best

Senior Director, Barbie Design

Twenty years ago, a talented young fashion designer met his muse. That designer is Robert Best and his inspiration was Barbie. After designing for Donna Karan and Isaac Mizrahi, Best came to Mattel to...

> Read more > Hide