Joelle Emerson

As Paradigm’s Co-Founder and CEO, Joelle sets the vision and strategy for Paradigm’s work to create high-performance cultures for everyone. She also leads Paradigm’s product team, working to ensure that Paradigm is developing innovative, impactful solutions that drive measurable progress. Under her leadership, Paradigm is harnessing the power of cutting-edge technologies like AI to help customers uncover key barriers, glean deeper cultural insights, and scale tailored, actionable strategies for building inclusive, future-ready organizations. Joelle also spends time working with boards and executive teams to think strategically about how to create best-in-class cultures that are aligned with organizational priorities.

Joelle has written extensively about culture and inclusion, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and on the cover of The Atlantic. She has been named to Recode’s list of the 100 most influential people in business, Marie Claire’s “New Guard” list of 50 women changing the world, and The New York Times’ Groundbreakers. Before founding Paradigm, Joelle was a civil rights lawyer. Joelle leverages her legal background to support companies in reducing risk and scrutiny as they work to cast wide nets for talent, design fair and merit-based talent practices, and create cultures that unlock belonging for everyone. Joelle is a graduate of Stanford Law School.