New York, NY – April 28, 2026 – Today, creative agency FIG announced the appointment of Richard Bush as Chief Platform Officer. In this newly created role, Bush will drive the acceleration of the agency’s proprietary creative intelligence platform StoryData™ and oversee the expansion of StoryData™ Labs, a new division focused on transforming the existing platform into a next-generation, AI-powered decision engine underpinning how FIG works, and for brands. Bush will report to Founder and Creative Chairman Mark Figliulo.
“Richard is exactly the kind of leader we built FIG to attract. He’s deeply technical, entrepreneurial and proven at scaling what’s next,” said Figliulo. “With the launch of StoryData™ Labs, we’re accelerating a model that already delivers senior-led impact for our clients. Richard’s experience at the intersection of business and technology makes him the perfect person to advance our capabilities and help solve the creative intelligence gap.”
StoryData™ Labs was established in response to growing client demand and to expand the platform’s capabilities. StoryData™ combines creative, consumer, media and business data to help brands make faster, smarter decisions about what stories to tell, how to tell them, and how to optimize performance before and after launch. Bush will lead a dedicated team focused on enhancing functionality, increasing speed and scalability, and enabling real-time, cross-category analysis, while integrating the latest advancements in large language models (LLMs) and agentic systems.
Bush brings more than three decades of experience building and scaling advertising and media technology platforms across the globe, from architecting internet-scale ad systems, including leading the team that delivered the WordAds program at IPONWEB (acquired by Criteo) for Automattic’s WordPress platform, to senior leadership roles at ADTECH (acquired by AOL) and as President and CPO of fintech platform NYIAX, where he worked closely with Nasdaq on joint development. A repeat founder, he has co-founded three AI and emerging technology companies in the past three years — Chainfuelz, Sphyr, and Askmymgmt — and advises multiple startups on product, technology, and go-to-market strategy..
“I joined FIG to scale something the industry hasn’t seen before. For decades, advertising has been optimised for targeting and media delivery. But the real problem is whether the story resonates, whether the message lands and moves people,” said Bush. “We’re entering an age where authentic human storytelling actually matters again. With so much content across every channel, the brands that win are those whose stories genuinely resonate. StoryData™ has already proven the power of creative data extraction. The opportunity now is to build the agent-driven interface that turns creative intelligence into insight teams can actually use, and make storytelling the driver of results again. That’s the generational shift I’m here to build.”
Bush will be based in New York and begins his new role immediately.
