LYNN HIRSHFIELD NAMED SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLISHING FOR PARTICIPANT MEDIA

Lynn Hirshfield has been promoted to the newly created position of Senior Vice President of Publishing for Participant Media, it was announced today by Buffy Shutt and Kathy Jones, Executive Vice Presidents of Marketing.
 
Shutt and Jones said, “Since she joined Participant, beginning with her work as a consultant in late 2005 on social marketing and outreach on An Inconvenient Truth, Lynn has contributed innovative thinking to our campaigns. Early on, she recognized the importance of extending Participant’s mission of presenting entertainment that inspires and compels social change into different media. This led her to create our company’s monthly newsletter, and more recently, to get buy-in from like-minded publishers.”
 
Lynn is responsible for launching Participant’s publishing division to complement the company’s films and social action campaigns. In September 2008, Participant announced its first publishing deal, a series of four paperback original books with PublicAffairs Books, beginning with Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It. The companion book to the highly anticipated documentary Food, Inc. was published May 4th, and is already in its fourth printing before the film has even debuted in theatres.
 
In addition, Participant is teaming with Penguin and Puffin Books on a series of activist guides for readers 10 to 17, inspired by Participant's social action activities on various issues.  Their first release, to be published Spring 2010, is titled Girls Gone Green and authored by Lynn. The book is a compilation of profiles of real girls doing really green things, and includes contributions and tips from Hayden Panettiere, Ellen Page, Alicia Silverstone, and many other young green female celebrities, activists, and experts serving as inspiring role models for young readers wanting to help save our planet.  
 
Hirshfield joined Participant Media in January 2007 as Vice President of Business Development, where she secured strategic marketing partnerships for Participant and its film projects, including most recently a national promotion for Food, Inc. with Stonyfield Yogurt. Prior to joining the staff of Participant, she consulted for the company throughout 2006 on the social marketing and outreach for the Academy Award®-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Lynn has served in the same capacity for a number of internet content and technology start ups, and various studios and venture capital groups specializing in creating new verticals and generating strategic partnerships with corporate sponsors.
 
Previous to entering the internet arena, she worked as a development executive for productions garnering a number of awards, including four Emmys, a Peabody Award and two Television Critics Awards -- among them the PBS series “Wishbone.” She was also a story editor for National Geographic Feature Films, Scott Rudin, Norman Lear, Tim Burton and Sony, Fox and Warner Bros. Studios.
 
In 2006, Penguin Books published her first children's book Sassafras: True Confessions of a Poodle Princess which was directly inspired by Participant’s mission to use creative media for social change. The sequel, Sassafras Goes to Hollywood was published in June 2007. Both books help support dog rescue efforts.
 
Lynn is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Graduate Program at Harvard University.
 
Participant Media is a Los Angeles-based entertainment company that focuses on socially relevant, commercially viable feature films, documentaries and television, as well as publishing and digital media.  Participant Media is headed by CEO Jim Berk and was founded in 2004 by philanthropist Jeff Skoll, who serves as Chairman. Ricky Strauss is President.
 
Participant exists to tell compelling, entertaining stories that bring to the forefront real issues that shape our lives.  For each of its projects, Participant creates extensive social action and advocacy programs which provide ideas and tools to transform the impact of the media experience into individual and community action.  Participant’s films include The Kite Runner, Charlie Wilson’s War, Darfur Now, An Inconvenient Truth, Good, Night and Good Luck., Syriana, Standard Operating Procedure, The Visitor and Food, Inc.