Richard Kirshenbaum

In 1987, at the age of 26 after graduating from Syracuse University Kirshenbaum co-founded Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners, an advertising agency based in New York City.[4][5][6] The agency pioneered marketing concepts such as the pop-up store, sidewalk advertising, and other forms of high-visibility guerrilla marketing.[7][8] Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners combined interactive, PR and media buying to become one of the largest independently held advertising agencies in the United States.[4][5] The agency's clients included BMW, Jergens, Hennessy, Moet & Chandon, Dom Pérignon, Van Cleef & Arpels, Snapple, Coach, Credit Suisse and Target.[2][9][10][11][12] Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners was purchased by MDC Partners in 2009.[8]

Kirshenbaum founded and launched NSG/SWAT, an advertising start-up that provides multiple marketing services, in 2011.[2] The agency's clients include New York Knicks, the New York Rangers, Jockey, Alcon and Great White Shark Enterprises, and the launch, strategy and creative direction of new brands including Master & Dynamic, Wheels Up Aviation, Neuehouse and LYVE, a data storage solution.[1][13] NSG/SWAT created, developed and launched Blackwell Fine Jamaican Rum in partnership with Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records.[14]

Richard Kirshenbaum is also a co-founder of SWAT Equity, a venture-capital firm investing in emerging entrepreneurs and consumer brands.

In 2005, Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners was featured in an episode of The Simple Life, where Paris Hilton was featured as an assistant.[15] Kirshenbaum helped Bruce Willis prepare for his role as an advertising executive in Perfect Stranger, a film released in 2007.[16] In 2009, Kirshenbaum hosted Creative Lunch, a television series where he spoke with leaders from the music, fashion, film, media and business industry, on Plum TV.[17] He has also appeared as himself in "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold", Morgan Spurlock's film about advertising, in 2011. Kirshenbaum also was the guest bartender on Andy Cohen's "Watch What Happens Live" in August 2015.[18]

Richard Kirshenbaum authored Under the Radar: Talking to Today's Cynical Consumer with Jonathan Bond in November 1997.[19] Kirshenbaum published Closing the Deal: Two Married Guys Reveal the Dirty Truth to Getting Your Man to Commit, a book discussing relationships, with Daniel Rosenberg in February 2006.[20] In 2011, he published Madboy: Beyond Mad Men; Tales from the Mad, Mad World of Advertising.[21] Kirshenbaum writes for Us Weekly's "Fashion Police" column regularly and The New York Observer.[22][23] His column in the New York Observer, "Isn't That Rich", is published monthly and Kirshenbaum's 2015 essay collection "Isn't That Rich? : Life Among the 1%", published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media. Producers Ben Silverman, Jordan Schur and Amy Harris acquired the rights and have sold the book, to ABC Television to develop a scripted series.[23] He is also a playwright and his work has been produced by David Mamet's Atlantic Theater Company.[15]

Richard Kirshenbaum's first novel, Rouge, is releasing on June 25th and is a sexy, glamorous journey into the rivalry of the pioneers of powder, mascara and rouge. The novel was recently purchased by Sony Pictures and featured in Fortune Magazine as one of seven novels to read this summer.