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Emily Gordon

Experienced communications and media strategist

Emily Gordon is currently the Director of Executive Communications at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, a position she has held since April 2023. In this role, she manages communications for the school's senior leadership, including Dean Ann Harrison. Her responsibilities encompass producing strategic messaging, internal and external briefings, media relations, and crisis response.1

Before joining UC Berkeley, Emily served as the Senior Associate Director of Media Relations and Faculty Research at the Yale School of Management from May 2017 to April 2023. There, she promoted the faculty's expertise through media engagement and developed relationships within the Yale community and beyond.1

Emily has a diverse background in communications, having worked in various roles including content strategist, copywriter, and editor for numerous organizations and clients, including Ogilvy & Mather and several nonprofits. She also founded Emdashes.com, a media and culture site recognized with a Webby Award.1

Highlights

Jan 31 · linkedin

Proud of my former colleague, Yale School of Management professor Tristan Botelho, for being named to the 2024 Thinkers50 Radar list. The list "identifies a cohort of 30 up-and-coming thinkers whose ideas we predict will make an important impact on management thinking in the future." Couldn't agree more! This quote from a Yale Insights interview with Tristan on his study of restaurant servers and Yelp Elite reviewers speaks volumes about the values he brings to academia:

"Prof. Tristan Botelho has conducted multiple studies showing how women are penalized in evaluations of their work. He says it’s time to move beyond documenting bias and figure out how to reduce it. 'Unfortunately, bias is a common finding. You don’t get surprised anymore,' he says. But if we can better understand the levers that attenuate or magnify bias, 'we can then design these processes more equitably.'"

Read more about this and his other research in Yale Insights. Congrats!

Aug 23 · linkedin

Professor Heidi Brooks and I conducted this interview before I left the Yale School of Management to work at University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. Heidi knows what she's talking about: She teaches a wildly popular class in interpersonal dynamics, pioneered Yale's Everyday Leadership course, and advises some of the biggest companies you know on how to navigate and improve work relationships and office culture from whatever position you're in. She is a mesmerizing and galvanizing speaking presence, and it was an honor to do a series of interviews with her during my tenure about all the small ways we can try harder to work together better. Day after day, month after month, they add up!

I particularly love Heidi's insights in this exchange:

𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬. 𝐓𝐨 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐝 “𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧‘𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐥; 𝐥𝐞𝐭‘𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭” 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞.

That’s the human draw toward familiarity. But one of the funny things is that we have different versions of familiar. For some people, what has become familiar is staying at home. For other people, what is familiar is being in the office. Our reference points are different. And since we’re not great at understanding each other’s perspective, we might be picturing different parts of the elephant. I’m not even sure if we’re picturing the same mammal.

I don’t think we were great at this question before. But the conversation has gotten more demanding and more urgent. We were already bad at discussability of tensions, and coordinating our time and interactions together, and coordinating around productivity and individual wellbeing and sustainability in a meaningful way that promotes belongingness and unleashes potential. We were horrible at all of those things before. So why should we be better under duress? If you’re not great at running a marathon, you’re not going to be better just because there’s suddenly a hill. You’re going to be worse.

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬.

The marathon example is a nice analogy, because when you come to the hill, you can see the groups that are stronger get separated from the ones that are struggling. When you put a unit under stress, whether it’s a company or an individual, you see what’s strong and what’s weak.

#leadership #management #covid #productivity #hybrid #officeculture #dei

Related Questions

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Emily Gordon
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Experience

Director of Executive Communications at University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business (April 2023 - Present)
Senior Associate Director, Media Relations and Faculty Research at Yale School of Management (May 2017 - April 2023)

Education

B.A. in English and Writing from Barnard College (1989 - 1993), M.F.A. in Writing from New York University (2001 - 2004)

Location

Berkeley, California, United States