Lisa Birnbach is an award-winning journalist, social and cultural commentator and bestselling author.  Celebrated for her keen eye, sharp wit and humor, Lisa is a media favorite and has lectured at numerous universities around the country. 

Best known as the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Official Preppy Handbook and True Prep, she’s published 20 other books, which have been translated into a dozen languages. The Preppy Handbook became a runaway bestseller and a tongue-in-cheek reference guide for a generation. She’s written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Parade, Rolling Stone, New York, and other magazines in addition to Yahoo!  

She co–hosted ABC’s Good Night America and was a correspondent on CBS’s The Early Show for three years hosting the segment, “YIKES! I’m a Grown-Up.”  She hosted The Lisa Birnbach Show, a daily syndicated radio show which received the Gracie Awards in 2007 for Outstanding Talk Show, and Outstanding Humor Show.  

The Preppy Handbook was an instant sensation and created many opportunities for Birnbach.  She began writing for such high–profile publications as Glamour, TV Guide, and Rolling Stone.  She also went on a college lecture tour and then put her vast knowledge of college life to use when she wrote Lisa Birnbach's College Book, offering the inside scoop on campuses around the country.  She became the youngest Dewar’s Profile subject, and was hired by director Peter Weir to be his consultant on the film, Dead Poets Society. In the '90s, she began writing comedy for television and cable specials. 

In addition to her work as an author, Lisa was a long time contributing editor at Parade and New York magazines, and served as the deputy editor of the hilarious and influential Spy magazine.  

Lisa has consulted with various global lifestyle brands, including Brooks Brothers and Tommy Hilfiger, Inc. and was the etiquette expert at Brides magazine, with a monthly column from early 2011 to mid-2012. 

The 2010 publication of True Prep (Knopf) landed Lisa on The Colbert Report, Nightline, The Today Show, and a 28-city tour.  It was also excerpted in Vanity Fair magazine. 

Lisa does quite a bit of in-person hosting -- benefit programs and black tie fundraisers for everyone from the Collegiate School, the Weizmann Institute of Science, the League of Women Voters of New York, the James Thurber Foundation, and the United Way of Greenwich, CT. She was also the 2007 host of the Gannett Film Club at the Jacob Burns Film Center.  

As part of New York’s 92nd Street Y’s American Conversation Series, Lisa most recently produced and moderated OUR TURN: Women Leading Academia which included the presidents of Brown University, University of Pennsylvania, Amherst College and the chancellor of Rutgers University-Newark. She also appeared as a panelist at Digital Hollywood’s Media Summit discussing Leveraging Content and Celebrity For Cross-Platform Success; was a guest on Sundance TV’s original series, The Approval Matrix, a show inspired by New York Magazine's back page pop culture roundup hosted by Neal Brennan of The Chappelle Show; and presented her talk, My Life As A Women: From Shirley Temple to The Bachelorette* *With a Visit from Gloria Steinem during Hubspot’s Inbound 2014 International Conference.  She hosted the National Coalition Against Censorship’s Gala and moderated In Conversation with Kenneth Cole as well as In Conversation with Daniel Menaker for Writers Speak, Manhattan.  Additionally, she served as a panelist along with television’s top comedy writers from The David Letterman Show, The Daily Show and Funny Or Die for a New York Comedy Festival program hosted by Alan Zweibel of SNL.

Lisa co-created, wrote and produced Seconding the First, a celebration of the First Amendment, held at Town Hall in New York City which starred Christopher Reeve, Paul Newman, Walter Cronkite, Lou Reed, Ron Howard, and many others.  

She is co–creator and was co–host of Zero Hour on ABC–TV and co–writer of the off–Broadway revue, Loose Lips, starring Harry Shearer, Bebe Neuwirth, Peter Boyle, and Andy Richter. She was co–writer and co–executive producer of Me Me Me, a comedy pilot for UPN and 20th Century Fox, and co–writer for the HBO pilot, Uptown, Down There. 

In addition to her work in entertainment, Lisa also serves as Creative Director for THE FIELD, a New York City based marketing and communications agency, working primarily on cause-related issues.  Most recently, she was lead creative for the award winning Don’t Major in Debt campaign featuring Jane Lynch, for the National College Finance Center, which garnered nationwide attention addressing the issue of escalating college debt.

And her three kids didn’t raise themselves.