Lisa Burwell
lisa-marie-burwell-headshot
VIE Magazine Founder/Editor-in-Chief Lisa Burwell
Founder / Editor-in-Chief / Creative Director
A lighthearted yet thoughtful approach led to imagining and creating VIE in 2008 as a luxury lifestyle magazine intended for everyone. Founder Lisa Marie Burwell coined it “the everyman approach” to storytelling, founded on the mission that all people, ideas, styles, and opinions matter. The quality of the paper, rich photography, impeccable design, and lengthy articles made for unique stories that readers and advertisers alike have gravitated toward since the beginning.
Before founding VIE and in the years since, Lisa has helmed a branding, marketing, PR, and publishing agency, The Idea Boutique® (VIE’s publisher) as the founder and CEO since its inception in 1994. This has been no easy feat, especially coupled with founding and imagining a new lifestyle magazine in the aftermath of the Great Recession in 2008. Around that time, the fearless and determined quest began for our founder/creative director, who also wears the editor-in-chief hat. Lisa and her team set out to create value, beauty, respect, and honor for all who enter the VIE ecosystem. This magazine is curated with passion, love, and excellence, and it shows in every issue. An esprit de corps of boundless creativity is supercharged in all team members who co-labor to bring VIE to life. Respect and love for people and creativity are Lisa’s constant guides; she has said more than once, “I don’t care about the money, the credit, or anything else—I only care about fostering a creative and collaborative environment as this is the only way to create the best work. If you create quality, money will follow.”
The Idea Boutique® now publishes coffee-table books, novels, and other magazine titles, as well as producing two podcasts—VIE Speaks and VIE Book Club—enabling VIE to enter the realm of being a full-service media company with multiple layers to communicate with digital fans and print readers alike.
Lisa’s background is in television, radio, hospitality, and real estate marketplaces as an editor, writer, and marketing director for multimillion-dollar companies in Boston and the Peabody Hotel Group in Memphis. These ventures led her to relocate to Seaside, Florida, in her twenties to hold the marketing director position for the retail merchants association there. After her contract with the association concluded, she founded The Idea Boutique®, and SEASIDE® became her first client. As the saying goes, the rest is history.
This journey has taken Lisa worldwide to cover stories for VIE and other titles, opening doors that otherwise would have never been open. She has had the honor of meeting countless people from all walks of life. Lisa views this endeavor as her mission and destiny and does not take anything for granted. She believes her success is God-given and she is forever grateful to do something that very few have had the privilege of doing.
In homage to VIE’s namesake and Lisa’s closing salutation in each issue’s Editor’s Note, we leave you with a heartfelt toast: “To Life!”
