Lena Renold was born in 1971 and grew up in New Jersey, USA. She graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts Internationals Affairs and with a minor International Economics from George Washington University in Washington D.C. During her studies she attended the University of Tübingen in Germany and decided in 1994 to relocate to Cologne, Germany. 

In Germany she completed the vocational training to become a bookseller. After stations in bookshops and a book distributor, she began working in the Sales & Marketing departments of German publishing houses (e.g. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Hoffmann & Campe). In 2016 she founded her own business Rund ums Buch, specializing in sales & marketing for independent publishers.