Joelle Emerson

Joelle Emerson is the founder and CEO of Paradigm Strategy Inc., a strategy firm that partners with leaders of some of the world's most innovative companies to consult and advise on diversity and inclusion strategies.

She has written extensively about diversity, inclusion, and unconscious bias, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and The Atlantic.

In 2017, Emerson was named to Recode's list of the 100 most influential people in business and to Marie Claire's "New Guard" list of 50 women changing the world.

Prior to founding Paradigm, Emerson was a women’s rights employment lawyer. As a Skadden Fellow at Equal Rights Advocates, she represented women in gender discrimination and sexual harassment litigation, and she advocated for local, state, and federal policies ensuring equal pay and other workplace protections for women. Emerson's legal background highlighted the consequences that can result from companies failing to consider diversity and inclusion early and inspired her to found Paradigm.

From 2016 to 2017, she served as an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University's School of Business, where she taught a course called "Building Diverse and Inclusive Organizations."

Emerson is a graduate of Stanford Law School. She also graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Southern California with bachelor's degrees in political science and sociology.