LISA LESHNE has been in the media and entertainment business for 30+ years. In 1991, she co-founded and served for over a decade as Publisher of The Prague Post, the largest English-language newspaper in Central Europe, along with its book division and website. She held positions in NY as Senior Consultant for Accenture’s Entertainment & Media Group; Executive Director, Strategy and Business Development for Dow Jones; Executive Director, International, for the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ.com, overseeing advertising, marketing and circulation in Europe and Asia; and Vice-President, Strategy and Business Development, for Ink2, an industry leader in the print-on-demand industry and owner of Cardstore.com (NYSE:AM). Lisa spent the year after Sept. 11, 2001 at the Partnership for New York City’s Financial Recovery Fund, evaluating grant applications and providing strategic advice to small businesses destroyed in the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. Prior to founding The Leshne Agency in 2011, Lisa began her career as a literary agent at LJK Literary.

Lisa’s clients include a diverse list of #1 New York Times bestselling, Pulitzer and Polk award-winning, and debut authors across many genres. She is most passionate about memoir and narrative non-fiction that elevate social justice topics, women’s issues, and underrepresented voices. She also acquires in the sports, business, political, health and pop-culture genres, and is always seeking exceptional literary and commercial fiction.

Lisa represents many award-winning journalists, including Julissa Arce, Cynthia Brown, Heather Cabot, Dean Calbreath**, Deborah Copaken*, Ken Davidoff, Turney Duff*, Monique El-Faizy, Jennifer Gould, Barry Levine, Daisy Lewellyn (d. 2016), Anetta Nowosielska, and Samantha Walravens, as well as Czech bestselling novelist, memoirist and winner of the Magnesia Litera and Franz Kafka Prizes, Ivan Klima and Screenwriter, novelist and memoirist Leslie Lehr. She represents the business memoir and manifesto LEVEL UP by #1 New York Times Bestselling author, Political leader and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams*, and her business partner at NOW Corp, Lara Hodgson; three-time Olympic gold medalist and the most decorated US soccer player of all-time, former US National Team Captain, Christie Pearce Rampone, Three-time WWE Women’s Champion as “AJ Lee” and mental health advocate, AJ Mendez*, Ultra-marathoner, motivational speaker and Atlanta Hawks co-owner Jesse Itzler*, Celebrity trainer, fitness sensation and creator of the Torch’d workout, Isaac “Boots” Calpito; Knicks Superfan Anthony Donahue; Bravo TV’s Real Housewives of New York star Luann de Lesseps; Hip Hop DJ, producer and rapper with RUN D.M.C. and The Beastie Boys DJ Hurricane, Jukebox the Ghost guitarist and singer Tommy Siegel, Former TOPGUN instructor and defense analyst Commander Guy Snodgrass; Neuropsychologist and brain health expert, Dr. Kristine Keane; Pediatrician and parenting expert Dr. Harley Rotbart; Gastroenterologist, medical journalist and founder of TULA skincare, Dr. Roshini Raj; Disability rights activist Meg Zucker; Photographer and Artist-in-Residence at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Christopher Michel, Survivor Corps founder Diana Berrent; Happiness entrepreneur Scott Simon, New York Law School professor Robert Blecker and Entrepreneurial lawyer Steve Cohen; Artist and Meme King Adam Padilla, and sculptor and artist Randy Polumbo; Author and writing coach Mina Samuels*, and bloggers David Futrelle aka We Hunted the Mammoth, Jill Smokler aka Scary Mommy, Latoya Shauntay Snell aka Running Fat Chef,

*denotes NYT Bestselling author; **denotes Pulitzer and Polk award-winning author

TALENT MANAGEMENT: Lisa manages a select number of her literary and entertainment clients, overseeing business matters, speaking engagements, and advising them over the course of their careers.

Originally from Champaign, Illinois, Lisa has a BA in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has been profiled for entrepreneurial activities on 60 Minutes, Prime Time Live, the BBC, and featured in Fortune, Money, The New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, Advertising Age, Smithsonian and other publications. Lisa is the subject of a Harvard Business School case study on The Prague Post, and has been an invited speaker and panelist at Harvard and Columbia Business Schools. She has two adult children and lives in Manhattan with her husband and their rescue dog, Luna May. Lisa is active on several non-profit boards and in her spare time loves to see Broadway shows and experimental theater. She is a veteran of four New York City marathons and several Olympic-distance triathlons. Lisa is a member of the Association of Author Representatives, the Author’s Guild, the Women’s Media Group, and PEN America. She serves on the faculty of The Faulkner Society’s Writer’s Festival in New Orleans, LA and the Kauai Writer’s Conference in Kauai, HI.

SANDY HODGMAN is the Director of Foreign Rights for the Leshne Agency. She has worked in publishing for over two decades and is dedicated to the long-term success of the agency’s authors. In the course of her career, she has licensed UK and translation rights for both major US publishers and independent literary agencies. Some of the authors she has had the pleasure of representing in the foreign market are Akemi Dawn Bowman, Peggy Dean, Ree Drummond, Jesse Itzler, Emmy Laybourne, Gregory Maguire, Rafael Nadal, Jeremy Rifkin, Gene Simmons, Cynthia Swanson, Maria Toorpakai Wazir, among many others.

Sandy is a fixture at the London Book Fair and the Frankfurt Book Fair and travels overseas to maintain relationships and promote our titles throughout the year. She is a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR) and is a member of the AAR International Committee.

YVETTE GREENWALD is a Literary Agent at The Leshne Agency. Yvette loves reading books across all genres and has a special fondness for literary fiction and memoir. She previously worked as a corporate attorney at several NYC law firms, and was a summer intern for Justice Sonia Sotomayor at a private law firm prior to Sotomayor joining the Supreme Court.

Yvette holds a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School where she was an editor of the Law Review. Yvette graduated with a BA in English from Tulane University where she authored an honors thesis examining coming-of-age works by Charles Dickens and George Eliot.

CHRISTINE J. LEE is an Associate Literary Agent at The Leshne Agency with interest in a broad range of genres, including full-length literary fiction, sci-fi, thrillers, horror, true crime, and romance, YA, cookbooks, interior design and gardening, parenting, books on self-empowerment, and memoirs/biographies touching on race, sex, class, and identity. She has worked in the publishing industry for more than 13 years, beginning at Bedford/St. Martin’s, then moved on to Simon & Schuster. She earned a BA from Princeton University in English Literature and a MFA from the University of Houston in Fiction. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, son, and cat.

ANNA OLIVIA SOMMER is an intern at The Leshne Agency. Born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark, Anna is a rising senior at Barnard pursuing a degree in English with a creative writing concentration, and a minor in anthropology. Anna is inspired by the Danish literary canon and her favorite authors include Naja Marie Aidt, Stine Pilgaard, Jenny Offill, and Madeline Miller. She previously worked as an assistant to Pulitzer prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, and as an intern for New York Times bestselling authors Christina Baker Kline and Jean Hanff Korelitz.