Yelena Gitlin Nesbit Executive Director, Publicity and Marketing

Yelena Gitlin Nesbit serves as the Executive Director of Publicity and Marketing. Yelena works closely with authors and their publishers to reinforce book publicity and marketing strategies, and with Park & Fine leadership on agency communications and initiatives. She identifies trends, tools, and partners to grow author platforms, successfully launch their books and position them for sustained success.

Yelena has worked in book publishing for over 24 years, beginning her career at Viking Penguin in 2000. Yelena spent nearly eight years at Bloomsbury, where she worked across fiction and nonfiction categories. In 2008 she joined Rodale Books where she oversaw communications, collaborated on creative, results-driven marketing and social initiatives, and worked with then-Rodale Brands (Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Prevention) to amplifying exposure for Rodale books. In 2017, Yelena joined the Harper Wave imprint at HarperCollins where she worked with the imprint’s senior leadership to shape the list, develop book ideas/identify potential authors, create and implement marketing and partnership initiatives, and developed publishing strategy for frontlist and backlist titles. Over the years, Yelena has worked with such bestselling authors as: Vice President Al Gore, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, actress and activist Alicia Silverstone, comedian Chealsea Handler, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, acclaimed fantasy writer Susanna Clarke, music legends Tim McGraw and Melissa Etheridge, psychologists Dr. Becky Kennedy (@drbeckyatgoodinside) and Dr. Nicole LePera (@The.Holistic.Psychologist).

Yelena graduated from Hunter College with a BA in History and a minor in Africana & Puerto Rican and Latino Studies. Originally from Belarus, Yelena landed in Brooklyn, NY in 1980 and never left. She lives in Flatbush with her husband and daughter. On weekends you will find her taking a very long walk, enjoying Brooklyn’s finest pizza (ok, she won’t gatekeep: Luigi’s on Fifth Avenue), and working her way through a dangerously high pile of books.