Rachel Been is a design leader whose career spans art, systems, and technology. She has brought cohesion and innovation to complex, high-impact products—guiding design at the forefront of some of today’s most influential companies.
Currently, Rachel is the SVP of Design at Expedia Group, where she leads the product design, research, and content organizations for one of the world’s most iconic travel companies. Previously, Rachel served as Senior Director of Design at Airbnb, where she led a sweeping redesign of the company’s design system and drove multiple strategic platform initiatives—including Airbnb’s first AI Agent and a reimagined booking experience.
Before Airbnb, Rachel was the Design Director for the Google Home and Nest apps. There, she founded Google Nest’s first home ambient computing and automation design team and led a major reinvention of the Google Home app across mobile and ambient interfaces—reshaping how people interact with their connected homes.
Earlier in her career, Rachel was a founding member and lead of Google’s Material Design team, where she drove the vision for one of the most influential design systems in the world. During her time at Google, she launched the company’s first imagery guidelines, created the first design system for machine learning, served as Google’s first creative director of emojis, and reimagined the Google Play Store as its first art director—introducing editorial design and original photography at scale.
Prior to her work in tech, Rachel was the Creative Director of Billboard.com, where she redefined the visual voice of the iconic music brand through original photography and a sweeping redesign.
