Mary Lou Quinlan is a marketer, author, actor, speaker, and advocate for women. She obtained her B.A. at St. Joseph’s, Philadelphia, and her M.B.A from Fordham, and has been awarded five honorary doctoral degrees. After serving as CEO of the country’s oldest advertising agency, N.W. Ayer, she started her own women’s marketing company, Just Ask a Woman. She is also the author of four books, her latest, The God Box, is a New York Times bestseller.

Mary Lou also stars in her one woman stage adaptation of that book, and has donated all proceeds to hospitals, hospice, and cancer care and education. She will be performing the play in ten Irish theaters with proceeds going to local hospices through the Irish Hospice Foundation. She is also a member of The Irish Repertory Theater, The Irish Arts Center, NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House, and The American Ireland Fund.

Mary Lou is fourth generation Irish and is currently tracing her maternal roots in the Cosgrove line. In her work, she says she tries “to bring the Irish humor, humanity, and perseverance that I learned from my mother and grandmother to everything I do.”

She lives in New York City and Bucks County, PA with her husband Joe Quinlan.