Lights, Camera, Retirement! Rich’s Golden Hippo Journey

After years of shaping unforgettable campaigns and sprinkling his creative magic across Golden Hippo, our Creative Director Rich is heading into retirement! To celebrate, we're digging into his career highlights, favorite moments, and what’s next. Continue reading to hear from the man behind so many of our creative wins and join us in congratulating Rich on this achievement!

What is your title? What has your career journey looked like at GH?

I have been the Creative Director at Golden Hippo for the past 5 years. I was responsible for Web/UX (my primary area of expertise), visual brand design, print design, and photography. There are other talented Golden Hippo creative directors in charge of video, storytelling, and copywriting.

I was recruited to Golden Hippo in December, 2019, as a result of my background in UX design, ecommerce, and direct-response marketing.  I wasn’t looking for a full-time job at the time, and I was content to split my time doing contract UX design and start-up consulting.  At the time, I had a mix of media, retail, SaaS, marketing tech, and insurance company clients, and I was also a board member for the L.A. Venture Association and a mentor for a local startup accelerator. 

Initially, I questioned whether I was the right fit for a Creative Director role—that title can mean different things at different companies. Nevertheless, the recruiter persisted, and I was intrigued enough to interview. After a couple of rounds I realized that the role sounded similar to my former job as Design Director for Beachbody in the early 2000’s. With that, the buzzing atmosphere of the office—something I was missing—and the scrappy entrepreneurial culture made me want to work at Golden Hippo. 

I soon discovered that print design and photography were a bigger component of the job than I bargained for. Other than my ancient training as a graphic designer I had no experience managing that, but Golden Hippo supported me to catch up in those areas. The Web stuff coupled with Golden Hippo’s culture of entrepreneurship though… right up my alley.

Starting a new job anywhere and taking on an existing team is naturally a daunting task, and it was no different for me. Thankfully, the design team I was hired to manage had developed some solid expertise prior to my tenure, and I was eventually able to hire more, equally skilled people who knew things that I didn’t. It certainly helped that everyone was so talented to begin with.

Then, 4 months after starting my job… the pandemic. ‘Nuff said. 

I was barely getting my feet under me when everything changed as we transitioned to a remote, then hybrid workplace. In spite of that, the design team and I figured things out through trial-and-error, and the executive team provided us the time, space, and resources to do it. What’s more, online sales massively increased during the pandemic which had the effect of focusing the design team, and our effectiveness delivering work for the digital acquisition marketers rose markedly as a result. We actively contributed to the growth of our many brands that existed prior to my arrival at Golden Hippo, and as we emerged from the “Covid era” we launched several new brands, most of which have been wildly successful. 

Over the past 5 years we grew the design department to 18 people from just 7, including a fantastic team of Web and CRO (conversion-rate optimization) design and production specialists. The new Art Director we hired will be a game-changer for Golden Hippo’s brand design and photography teams.

What has been your proudest achievement during your time at GH?

I think there are two main things: 

The first is the growth of the design team—not only in number but in the individual development of the designers as professionals. Each team member has greatly expanded their skillset and breadth of knowledge. They’ve deeply grasped how design can translate into measurable company success in ways that designers at other companies often don’t. Together and collectively, the designers continually earn tremendous wins that contribute to the company’s goals, and I like to think that I played a meaningful role in facilitating that.

The second thing I am proud of is what I hope will become a permanent transformation in the way Golden Hippo designs, builds, markets, and manages its branded websites. When I arrived at Golden Hippo the branded websites were languishing and serving to mostly support the front-end acquisition funnels. Don’t get me wrong—acquisition marketing through the funnels is the lifeblood of the company—but we’ve brought the branded websites much further forward as part of Golden Hippo’s overall retention and ecommerce marketing strategy. In partnership with our developers, marketers, brand managers, and PMO’s, the design team has played a pivotal role in driving this transformation.

What will you miss the most about working here?

The people, the people, the people. That’s the hardest part of leaving. The tribal effort to get things done and solve problems is very satisfying and motivating. I’ve become friends with so many Hippos. I’ll miss the buzz of activity, the Tuesday company lunches, watching my co-workers grow, and one-on-one meetings with members of my team. I’ll miss Marieta and Julia who are so much smarter than me. I’ll also miss sidetracking meetings with dad jokes. Occasionally, I’ll get a laugh, but mostly it’s eyerolls.

What are you most excited about as you enter this new chapter? Are there any new hobbies, activities, or goals you’re looking forward to pursuing in retirement?

Excitement and fear produce the same physiological response so I’m not sure how much of each I’m feeling.

Maintaining physical and mental wellness is at the top of my list so I will reorganize my life to maximize that.  With that dialed in, I plan to spend more time with my family.  One of my adult children lives in Brooklyn so we want to visit them more often. 

Then, I’m going to propel my Iron Maiden tribute band as hard as I can and see how far we can go (shameless plug: Follow us @maidenunitedband on IG or FB). I’ll definitely do as much skiing, hiking, traveling, and mountain biking as I can, and I want to learn how to surf.

I’ll be engaged with other business interests to which I haven’t paid enough attention over the past 5 years so I will put some focus there. I’m not very good at sitting still so there’s a good chance I’ll start—or get involved in—some other venture. We’ll see. I’ll take a breath first. “Semi-retirement” is probably a better description of this next stage of my life.

I recently joined an organization called Connecting a Caring Community, and through them I am able to do volunteer work for various non-profit and charitable organizations.  I’m hoping to align whatever I might have to give to where it can best be applied.

What song, book, or movie best describes your career journey?

Career-wise I’ve read things like Good to Great, and I inhaled books about ecommerce early in my career. A co-worker reminded me of a book I read over 20 years ago entitled Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug, and a multi-day Web usability workshop I took in 2004 with Jakob Nielsen, the original Web usability guru, greatly impacted my focus on UX design. I also have a stack of graphic design books from which I stole all kinds of visual ideas for websites during the first third of my career. 

Everyone should also read A Random Walk Down Wall Street—it’s the only book on the stock market anyone will ever need. I got a lot from Radical Candor, but I’m not sure how well I put it into practice. I’ve been listening to a great business podcast that my dad recommended to me called How I Built This by Guy Raz, and I’ve read books about the building of Silicon Valley companies like Twitter and Facebook. The Four by Scott Galloway is good, too. He’s got a couple of great podcasts, and I like the way he thinks. 

I read at least two books per month, and they all influence me. I’m probably influenced the most by books on science, social psychology, history, and biographies of musicians and political figures. I just finished two non-fiction books about tyranny (How Tyrants Fall and Autocracy, Inc.) and I’m currently reading The Invention of Good and Evil. I’ve read everything by Malcolm Gladwell. 

Songs? All of them. I just bought a proper turntable and a pair of high-end speakers so I’m obsessively adding to my teenage vinyl collection that’s been sitting in boxes for decades. I’ve been developing an appreciation for country music like Chris Stapleton—his song “White Horse” has been on repeat lately. When I’m not listening to metal or classic jazz and I need a shot of positivity then I listen to Jason Mraz. I call it the “Mraz Meditation Method.”

What advice would you give to someone just starting their career?

Each of us is responsible for our own career growth. No company or person can do it for us, but good ones can be great catalysts. I took responsibility for propelling myself, and I actively sought out experts and partners wherever I could.  I certainly experienced a couple of lucky breaks, but I was prepared to leverage them. If I found something interesting then I figured out how to do it, or I enrolled in a class. When I realized at age 24 that I probably wasn’t going to get that elusive record deal I went back to school and learned new skills that serendipitously prepared me to ride the Internet boom in 1995. One never knows how things will change so keep learning. 

I networked like crazy and attended all kinds of business mixers and meetups. I also faced my fear of public speaking and positioned myself as an “expert.” I wasn’t any more an expert than anyone else, but people saw me out front, and that mattered. I recommend joining a networking group in order to meet colleagues in your industry. 

Don’t be afraid to make bold moves especially if you are early in your career—you’ve got time to recover if it doesn’t work out. On the flipside, a really good company like Golden Hippo is an amazing place to develop one’s career so take chances within the relative security it provides. In other words, Golden Hippo encourages employees to take risks, and they are encouraged to keep trying even when they don’t succeed at first. If you see an opportunity then get after it. Many of our most successful Hippos have done that.

Develop your writing skills. Over-communicate. Ask questions. Don’t be afraid to challenge ideas even if you might be wrong. In fact, be willing to be wrong. I don’t like being wrong. Admittedly, I’m rather allergic to it, but conceding where others are right is when I learn something new. As Golden Hippo states, the best idea wins.

As Rich embarks on this exciting new chapter, we couldn’t be prouder of all he’s accomplished and the creative legacy he leaves behind at Golden Hippo. Congratulations on your retirement, Rich—we can’t wait to see where your next adventure takes you!