Will McGuinness.

Will McGuinness is an executive strategist and communications leader whose work is grounded in a simple idea: strategy matters only when people understand it, trust its purpose, and know how to act on it.

Will’s approach was formed in journalism, where he learned how institutions are understood—and judged—when policy, public expectations, and events are moving quickly. At HuffPost, he led education coverage, helped shape the national policy conversation ahead of the 2012 presidential election, and guided coverage through major institutional crises and breaking news, including Penn State, Sandy Hook, and the Boston Marathon bombing. The work taught him to find signal in complexity, make sound decisions under pressure, and communicate clearly when trust is at stake.

At Columbia, Will led digital strategy and communications during an era of transformation, helping mobilize broad-based support for a $6.1 billion campaign and a new campus reshaping the physical and economic landscape of Upper Manhattan. His work also included Columbia Giving Day and the centennial modernization of the Pulitzer Prizes.

Will later led digital and social strategy at 2U and edX during a period of significant organizational and industry change. Representing the company and its senior leadership across public channels required more than message development: it required understanding the business, anticipating how decisions would be received, and bringing consistency to a fast-moving organization.

Working partly embedded with NASA’s International Space Station program, Will designed a knowledge-management capability to help teams capture critical expertise, preserve institutional memory, and make knowledge more useful across a complex, distributed organization. Grounded in his work in information and knowledge strategy, the recommendations were accepted by agency leadership and extended across NASA centers.

Together, these experiences define his approach: understand the environment, clarify the decision, connect it to a larger purpose, and give people a clear path forward. Teaching posts include Columbia University and New York University, where he brings the same questions of leadership, collaboration, knowledge, and communications into the classroom.