Contact Us
We'd love to hear from you to discuss collaboration on programs, or if RKS can contribute to the discussion, grow your career, or offer other assistance.
Future clients:
Helsa Chow
Director of Business Development
805-370-1200 x 117
helsa@rksdesign.com
Press & Speaking Engagements
John Kiehle
Marketing Communications Manager
805-370-1200 x 146
johnk@rksdesign.com
Resumes and Internship Inquiries
Paul Janowski
Operations Manager
805-370-1200 x 110
paulj@rksdesign.com
General Inquiries
We’re located at:
Our address and directions to visit can be found below along with suggestions on where to stay in the area.
350 Conejo Ridge Avenue
Thousand Oaks
California 91361
Phone 1.805.370.1200
Fax 1.805.370.1201
Directions from:
LAX
Burbank Airport
John Wayne Airport
Join the Team!
RKS is growing in exciting ways that provide new opportunities to become part of our team.?We are seeking talented and passionate candidates to work in our high-energy creative?business environment.
For general submissions, email your resume, cover letter, and a link to your portfolio to:
rksjobs@rksdesign.com.
We will hold your information in strictest confidence.
Please note:
Portfolio submission should not be made via email attachments. Instead, please provide a link to an online portfolio.
Speaking Engagements
The RKS executive team regularly contributes thought leadership in corporate, conference and academic settings, helping advance understanding and application of strategic design to business initiatives, professional collaboration, and consumer empathy for more successful product/service design.
To book us for your event, conference, or company visit, please contanct John Kiehle, our Marketing Communications Manager, at johnk@rksdesign.com.
Ravi K. Sawhney
Founder/CEO
Sawhney not only leads the team at RKS but is also an author, lecturer, entrepreneur and thought leader on design and innovation. Sawhney writes for Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Core77 and others as an expert blogger, has been inducted as a Fellow in the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA) and recognized with an honorary Ph.D. from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He is also the innovator/Jury Chair emeritus of IDSA’s Catalyst case program, championing design’s power to effect positive change in business, in lives and throughout the world, and a fixture as juror or chairman at many of the world’s most prestigious product design competitions.
Mr. Sawhney is a popular keynote speaker who has been featured in D.C. at the U.S. Patent & Trademark headquarters alongside the Undersecretary of Commerce, in Brazil at the Cycle of Knowledge Conference, in Cannes at the World Innovation Conference, and at the IDSA National Convention’s awards program. He’s sought in both corporate and academic environments for his deep knowledge of design strategy, innovation collaboration, and empathetic and psychological knowledge of people and consumer behavior. His keynotes for 2012 include: Leadership Summit on innovation and technology for the Design Futures Council, for the Drucker Business Forum, and at Cal State Northridge’s annual faculty retreat in the first several weeks of 2012.
Sawhney has helped address the role of design in business in international publications ranging from Business Week, to Curve, MD Magazine and many others. He’s also written about topics as varied as managing collaborative development initiatives, brand evangelism, pioneering UX design, and anticipating consumer trends, among many others because of his impressive and varied career that get more exciting every day. Sawhney helped invent the touch screen, reinvented the electric guitar, developed children’s favorite Teddy Ruxpin, and has helped deliver clever product solutions and concepts more recently for clients in many categories from healthcare, to kitchen tools, consumer electronics and everything in-between.
Lance Hussey
Vice President of Creative
As the design guru of RKS, Lance oversees the design of virtually every project that comes in the door and ensures that the design intent is always framed in reference to his client’s business strategy. He is a consistent design innovator with broad experience gained from working with clients that make medical devices, consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods and appliances and much more.
Hussey, as Creative Director has been an instrumental contributor to the rise of RKS as a global industrial design powerhouse and is a sought speaker on topics from consumer-centered design and trends. He’s the holder of numerous patents and design awards – IDEA (12), GOOD (24), Spark (19), CES Innovations (9) and many others – and a BS in Industrial Design from California State University, Northridge where he studied design under Sawhney.
Ingvald Smith-Kielland
Vice President of Strategy
At RKS he leads teams of designers, researchers, strategists, engineers and their client counterparts to bring a variety of innovation and business models to domestic and global markets. With extensive early experience in product development and user-interface research and design, Ingvald has also contributed strongly to refine RKS’ Psycho-Aesthetics methodology. He frequently speaks on this topic and others related to design and brand strategy for products and services, consumer-centered design research, has lectured and conducted workshops at Harvard Business School and Savannah College of Art and Design and plays a critical leadership in our powerful creative emergence sessions.
Prior to his years with RKS, Ingvald was a senior design manager at ZIBA Design and a product and interface designer at Universal Electronics; he’s a graduate of the Art Center College of Design with a degree in product design and holds numerous design awards and patents.