Early life
Resnick was born Lynda Rae Harris [3] to a Jewish family in Baltimore, Maryland, [4] [5] and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father, Jack H. Harris, born Ostravsky, worked as a film distributor during the 1950s; he is known for producing The Blob , which later became a cult favorite. [4] Her mother, Muriel (née Goodman), was an interior designer. [6] Because of her father's occupation, Resnick, at the age of four, had a recurring role on The Horn & Hardart Children's Hour broadcast from WCAU-TV in Philadelphia. [7] Resnick graduated from Harriton High School, and the family moved to southern California. [4] After a brief stint at a local college, Resnick took a job at the in-house ad agency for Sunset House catalog. [7] Resnick founded an advertising agency, Lynda Limited, at the age of 19. [8]
Pentagon Papers
Resnick, then Lynda Sinay, began doing occasional work for the anti-Vietnam War movement. By the fall of 1969, Resnick had divorced her first husband, Hershel Sinay, and began dating Anthony J. Russo, an engineer at RAND Corporation, a think tank in Santa Monica, Calif. He prevailed on her to allow him and a colleague, Daniel Ellsberg, to duplicate a large document using the Xerox 812 machine in her ad agency. Starting the night of Oct. 1, Russo, Ellsberg, and various helpers copied 7,000 pages of the secret, government-commissioned history of America's involvement in Vietnam, known as the Pentagon Papers.
Ellsberg asked to use her copy machine on nights and weekends to enable him to distribute copies of these top-secret military documents. He gave them to The New York Times , which then published them. Dubbed the Pentagon Papers, they detailed aspects of the Vietnam War that had been hidden from the public, damaging the credibility of the presidents involved. [9] Resnick was designated an un-indicted co-conspirator for her role, and prosecutors pursued her for two years. Legal actions were eventually dropped. [10]
Career
Resnick started her own advertising agency at the age of 19, which she grew to about a dozen employees. It was through her agency that she met Stewart Resnick, who was looking for advertising for a security firm he operated at the time. [11] The Resnicks went on to purchase Teleflora in 1979, at which time Lynda left her advertising job to lead their marketing efforts and eventually serve as the company’s president. [11] She won a Gold Effie Award for a campaign that paired fresh flowers with a collectible keepsake container, a format that later became common in the floral delivery industry. [12]
As The Wonderful Company grew to include pomegranates, pistachios, almonds, FIJI Water and more, Resnick led the company’s marketing efforts. She created the POM Wonderful logo for the company’s pomegranate products and the “double bubble” design for its juices. The bottle, which Resnick drew on a napkin, was designed to look like two pomegranates sitting on top of one another. [13] Wonderful Pistachios became America’s top-selling snack nut with the company’s “Get Crackin’” campaign, which featured celebrities such as Josh Allen, Stephen Colbert and Snoop Dogg. [14] [15] [16] In 2010, Resnick wrote a book on her approach to marketing called Rubies in the Orchard. [17]
The Wonderful Company ranked #1 on PEOPLE’s 2025 “100 Companies That Care” list [18] . Fortune also cited the Resnick-led philanthropy in naming the company to its list of the “100 Best Places to Work” in 2024 and 2025. [19]
Philanthropy
Lynda Resnick, along with her husband Stewart, have been listed among the nation’s top philanthropists according to Forbes and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. [20] [21] As of June 2024, they have given $2.5 billion to causes primarily focused on communities where their employees live and work, as well as efforts to combat global climate change. [22] The New York Times recognized Lynda Resnick as “the driving force behind the couple’s charitable efforts.” [23]
The Resnicks direct a significant share of their philanthropy to California’s Central Valley, home to many of their employees. Their community investments there include funding for education, healthcare, affordable housing and infrastructure. [24] [25]
The Resnicks founded and continue to support Wonderful College Prep Academy, a network of two public charter schools with campuses in Lost Hills and Delano, California, that collectively serve 2,400 TK-12 students. [26] [27] Academy teachers are among the highest paid in the county, funded by the Resnicks. Roughly 70% of students go on to college, many the first in their families to do so. [28]
The Resnicks' Wonderful Company also sponsors dual enrollment programs. Ag Prep offers students at seven high schools in the Central Valley on-the-job training for careers in areas including agriculture, education and healthcare. [29] [30] Students can also choose to earn college credit and receive an Associate of Science degree while attending high school.
Lynda and Stewart Resnick support research related to global climate change. The Resnicks $750 million 2019 pledge to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) was at the time the largest ever for research into environmental sustainability and the second-largest gift to a U.S. academic institution. [31] They have given $50 million each to the University of California, Davis, and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to support sustainability research. [32]
In Los Angeles, where The Wonderful Company is headquartered, they directed $10 million to relief efforts amid the 2025 Los Angeles fires. [33] At the University of California, Los Angeles, the Resnicks and their foundation support a Food Law and Policy Center, [34] and the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, which US News has ranked the top psychiatric hospital for adults in California. [35] Other donations include $70 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art [36] and a $30 million gift to the Hammer Museum [37] to build a new cultural center. [38]
In California’s wine country, the Resnicks supported the construction of the JUSTIN and J. LOHR Center for Wine and Viticulture at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. In 2024, the university announced the Resnicks will be funding a new center on campus to support first-generation college students. [39] [40]
In Fiji, the Resnick owned FIJI Water, through its foundation, funds local infrastructure, community health centers, classrooms, teacher housing, bus shelters, student walking paths and disaster recovery efforts. [41] [42] [43] [44]
As an Aspen Institute trustee, Resnick and her company sponsor the annual Aspen Action Forum, a global convening of leaders from business, government and non-profits. [45] They also funded the Center for Herbert Bayer Studies on the institute’s campus, creating the first permanent museum for the Bauhaus artist. [46]
Criticisms
Growing water-intensive nut tree crops (a single almond requires 1.1 US gallons [4.2 L] of water [50] ) in the Central Valley drew criticism during the 2011–17 California drought. According to Forbes , Wonderful Company uses "at least 120 billion gallons [450 million m3] a year, two-thirds on nuts, enough to supply San Francisco's 852,000 residents for a decade." [51] In addition, the Resnicks own a majority stake in the Kern Water Bank, "one of California's largest underground water storage facilities. It is capable of storing 500 billion gallons [1.9 billion m3] of water. They have also partnered with the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project to bring water to Kern County, [52] spending $35 million in recent years to buy up more water from nearby districts to replenish the Central Valley's supplies. [53]
At the same time as exporting almonds to Asia and other locations, they import Fiji bottled water from the South Pacific. Some foreign conservationists criticize the Resnicks for "hogging the archipelago's precious water supply... while island natives didn't always have water to drink themselves, due to crumbling and insufficient infrastructure." [53] However, local officials support the investment Fiji water makes in the economy as "a critical contributor to the Fijian economy... and a gift to the Fijian tourism industry." [54]
In addition, their claims for the POM pomegranate drink have been contested. According to Forbes, "The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint in 2010 that the Resnicks' POM Wonderful had used deceptive advertising when marketing the antioxidant-rich drink as being able to treat, prevent or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction. In 2012 a federal judge agreed that some of the ads were misleading. In 2013 FTC commissioners denied the Resnicks' appeal. In October 2015, the Resnicks asked the Supreme Court to take the case." [53] In May 2016 the Supreme Court declined to take the case. [55]
