
Rich Silverstein
Co-Chairman and Partner
Rich, along with his friend Jeff, started this whole thing.
Rich grew up in Yorktown Heights, New York. After graduating from the Parsons School of Design in New York City, he moved to San Francisco against his father’s wishes.
He worked as an art director in one-year increments for Rolling Stone magazine; Bozell & Jacobs; McCann Erickson; Foote, Cone & Belding; and Ogilvy & Mather, where he met Jeff Goodby and finally settled down. They founded GS&P in 1983 and have won just about every advertising award imaginable.
In 2002 he was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame and, two years later, into the One Club Creative Hall of Fame. Along with Jeff he was named Executive of the Decade by Adweek. In 2019 he and Jeff were anointed with the Cannes Lion of St. Mark lifetime-achievement award, and in 2020 the duo starred in an 18-part MasterClass online learning series.
Rich sets a standard of design that has led the agency to compete against the country’s leading design studios. His passion is evident whether he’s crafting client work, creating his own work, working on projects for the Center for Investigative Reporting or visually blogging for the Huffington Post. In 2021 he created I Read the News Today Oh Boy, a solo presentation. The exhibition featured a series of works that Rich made reflecting on the Trump era, created by using text and images that he hand-ripped from the New York Times.
Rich serves on the board of Specialized bicycles, and though he recently retired from the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy board after 15 years, he continues to develop work for them that keeps their brand the envy of our country’s park system.
Rich lives in San Francisco with his wife, Carla Emil, and Felix the cat. He has two grown kids, Aaron and Simone, and is a proud grandfather to Maple, Will, Owen and Emma.