Mary Lou Quinlan is the founder and CEO of Just Ask a Woman, the country’s leading women’s marketing company. From her dynamic rise from director of advertising for Avon to EVP at DDB Needham Worldwide and then CEO of ad agency NW Ayer, she’s built a national reputation as a compelling speaker, successful author and TV personality, obsessed with asking what women want.
Since its founding11 years ago, Just Ask a Woman has personally interviewed nearly 15,000 women to develop breakthrough strategies and innovations for 90 plus blue chip brands and companies, such as IKEA, Westin, Clairol, GlaxoSmithKline, Best Buy and Wachovia.
Mary Lou is the author of “Just Ask a Woman, Cracking the Code of What Women Want and How They Buy” (Wiley, 2003) and “Time Off for Good Behavior, How Hardworking Women Can Take a Break and Change Their Lives” (Broadway Books, 2005). She just launched her newest book (written with Just Ask a Woman partners, Jen Drexler and Tracy Chapman), “What She’s Not Telling You, Why Women Hide the Whole Truth and What Marketers Can Do About It.”
American Idol’s Simon Cowell cast Mary Lou as the only female judge in the ABC-TV reality competition, "American Inventor," and she’s appeared as a correspondent for The CBS EARLY Show. She’s been a columnist for MORE and has written for O, the Oprah Magazine, Redbook, Good Housekeeping and Marie Claire.
Mary Lou has received the Advertising Woman of the Year award from Advertising Women of New York and the Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications. She holds an honorary doctorate in communications from her alma mater, Saint Joseph’s of Philadelphia and lives in New York City with her husband, Joe Quinlan.