The right communications leader for a mission-driven organization is not simply someone who can write and strategize; it is someone who believes in the mission from the inside. Whitney brought a former educator's credibility, a communicator's range, and a personal story that makes EL Education's message her own. That combination is rare, and finding it is exactly what Stronger is built to do.
EL Education needed a Director of Communications who didn't just understand the mission, someone who had lived it. Finding that person required more than a job posting.
By 2022, EL Education was deep into a national expansion phase, more curriculum partnerships, more schools, and greater demand for a communications function that could credibly carry the organization's message to educators, funders, and policymakers. The Director of Communications role was newly created to meet that moment.
The risk: hire a technically strong communicator without genuine connection to education equity, and the organization's public voice rings hollow at exactly the moment it needs to resonate most.
Proactively sourced Whitney Emke through targeted outreach, identifying a communicator whose background was unlike that of anyone else in the candidate pool. Five years as a special educator working with students with emotional and behavioral disorders and autism spectrum disorders. Nearly a decade of mission-driven communications work. A Master's in Integrated Marketing Communications. Published in Education Week, Getting Smart, and ISTE Learning's Learning Supercharged (2nd edition).
Treated personal mission alignment as a core qualification. Whitney is a first-generation college student and foster care alumna, personally invested in the power of education to disrupt intergenerational cycles of poverty. That conviction gives EL Education's communications a depth of authenticity that cannot be manufactured.
Confirmed fit through a rigorous process: performance tasks, structured interviews, and scenario-based role-plays that revealed how Whitney leads enterprise-wide strategy, manages content across audiences, and represents a mission-driven organization under real-world conditions.
Stronger Consulting partners with mission-driven organizations to turn complex challenges into clear, practical action, from strategy through implementation.
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