Meg Hirshberg

Meg is a contributing editor and former columnist for Inc. magazine.  She continues to address this subject in her blog on Inc.com and in speaking appearances.  (For a compendium of Meg’s writing, see her website, www.meghirshberg.com.)  Meg’s book, For Better or For Work:  A Survival Guide for Entrepreneurs and Their Families, expands on her column topics.  Entrepreneur magazine selected Meg’s book as one of the five best business books of 2012, and Axiom Business Book Awards selected For Better or For Work as the 2013 “Gold” winner for books about entrepreneurship.

Meg is not an entrepreneur, but has been married to one for 30 years.    Family members are always, for better and sometimes for worse, caught up in the vortex of any entrepreneurial business.  In her book and speaking appearances, Meg delves into the challenges that arise when a couple is married to a business as well as to each other.  She proposes strategies and solutions for coping with these common problems, based on her own experience and those of the hundreds of entrepreneurs and spouses she interviewed for the book.

Meg worked in her husband Gary’s business, Stonyfield Yogurt, for the first several years of their marriage.  Stonyfield took nine painful years to reach profitability, and now, with about $370 million in sales, it is the largest organic yogurt company in the world.  After Meg stopped working in the business, she wrote two yogurt cookbooks, and launched her writing career.  Her work has appeared in Yankee, New Hampshire Magazine, and the Boston Globe Magazine, among others.

Meg grew up outside New York City and graduated from Brown University with a degree in Comparative Literature.  After college she moved to California to work on an organic farm and run a science education garden for elementary school children.  Meg’s interest in organic growing led her to get a Master’s degree from Cornell Agriculture School, after which she was hired to manage a large organic vegetable operation in New Jersey, where she lived until moving up to join Gary at Stonyfield Farm in New Hampshire.

Meg and Gary have three children.