Executive Bios
Lisa McKnight
Executive Vice President & Chief Brand Officer
As Chief Brand Officer, Lisa leads a global team in brand strategy, product development, and marketing execution across 150 countries. At Mattel, she has been a champion of the company’s design-led innovation, cultural relevance and has successfully reinvigorated the Barbie brand through empowering initiatives and forging strategic partnerships to prepare for its big screen debut. While the Head of Barbie and dolls, the portfolio achieved unprecedented growth with retail sales exceeding $3B. McKnight has been instrumental in evolving the Barbie 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.
As Chief Brand Officer, Lisa leads a global team in brand strategy, product development, and marketing execution across 150 countries. At Mattel, she has been a champion of the company’s design-led innovation,...
Kim Culmone
Senior Vice President, Doll Design
At the heart of Kim Culmone’s creative process is the belief that design is a powerful tool for positive impact. She currently holds the position of SVP, Design at Mattel Inc where she is head of product design for the some of the most iconic and ground-breaking doll brands in the world, including Barbie, Monster High, Entertainment Dolls, and non-Fashion Doll brands, including Polly Pocket and Enchantimals, and American Girl. In 2015, Kim was responsible for spearheading a Barbie product revolution (featured in the Hulu documentary “Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie”) that generated 5 billion media impressions, secured a TIME cover and was named to the magazine’s Best Inventions of the year, and received the coveted “Doll of the Year Award” from The Toy Association. Today Barbie is the most diverse doll in the world and includes dolls representing various ethnicities, body types, and physical abilities. In 2019, Kim and her team made history again by introducing the TOTY-nominated Creatable World, the first ever gender-inclusive fashion doll line. 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.
At the heart of Kim Culmone’s creative process is the belief that design is a powerful tool for positive impact. She currently holds the position of SVP, Design at Mattel Inc where she is head of product...
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 design for the world’s most fashionable doll and has since made an indelible impression on the brand. While at Mattel, Best has designed countless dolls representing characters from film and television, top celebrities and musicians. Additionally, many luxury fashion designers have entrusted Best to faithfully re-create their designs in Barbie scale. A crowning achievement came in 2000 when Best created the prestigious "Barbie Fashion Model Collection," an original line that celebrates Barbie as the ultimate fashion model. Rooted in the romance of the 50’s and 60’s and inspired by Best’s love affair with black-and-white films and his passion for classics like Balenciaga and Dior, the designs are timeless, instantly identifiable and thoroughly Barbie. In 2010, the Barbie Fashion Model Collection book was published, celebrating 10 years of the collection that can truly be called the “Best of Barbie.” Best studied fashion design at Parsons, The New School for Design in New York and was awarded “Student Designer of the Year” upon graduating. “One of my instructors told me that my sketches looked like Barbie," said Best. "So maybe it was prophetic.” Best gained pop culture fame himself in 2006 when he appeared on the wildly popular and long-running reality series Project Runway. Best and Barbie have been an extraordinary match. “My experience designing for Barbie has enabled me to reach more people than I ever did working in high fashion,” said Best. “In that aspect, Barbie is unique. Muse to some of the most influential fashion houses of all time, Barbie is also a toy that fires the imagination of children everywhere.”
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...