Jane Lipsitz

Having spent most of her career around numerous reality television series, Jane Lipsitz was an Emmy Award-winning executive producer who worked on popular reality competition shows like "Top Chef" (Bravo 2006-) and "Project Runway" (Bravo 2004-08, Lifetime 2009- ). She also directed the 3D documentary "Katy Perry: Part of Me" (2012).

Lipsitz was born on July 31, 1965 in New York, NY. She grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and received her higher education at Vassar College. She started her professional career in the music business as an employee of ICM Partners, then moved to Los Angeles. It was there that she began to learn how to become a producer, providing 40 hours of television coverage of Woodstock 1994 for Polygram Diversified Entertainment.

By the mid-1990s, Lipsitz was hired as a freelance producer for VH1. She received her first of numerous Emmy nominations for the competitive reality show "Bands on the Run" (VH1 2001). Later that year, Lipsitz left VH1 to form a new production company with Dan Cutforth, another producer whom she met when he pitched the idea of a travel-themed reality show to her.

Called Magical Elves Inc., Lipsitz and Cutforth's company produced shows for NBC, ABC, HBO, Showtime, and most notably Bravo. The two of them received numerous Emmy nominations for shows like "Project Greenlight" (HBO, 2001-03/Bravo, 2004-05; HBO, 2015) and "Project Runway." They eventually scored an Emmy win for Outstanding Reality Competition Program for "Top Chef" in 2010.

In that same year, Paramount Studios contacted Lipsitz and Cutforth to produce Justin Bieber's biographical movie "Never Say Never" (2011). The movie was a box office hit, so bubbly pop star Katy Perry tagged Lipsitz to make her directorial debut on Perry's 3D autobiographical bonanza "Katy Perry: Part of Me."