Joelle Emerson
Founder & CEO
Joelle 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 on the cover of The Atlantic. In 2017 she 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.
Before founding Paradigm Joelle 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 to ensure equal pay and other workplace protections for women. Joelle’s legal background highlighted the consequences that can result from companies failing to consider diversity and inclusion early, and inspired her to found Paradigm. Joelle is a graduate of Stanford Law School.
Pronouns: She/her