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Emily Friedman comes with a background in business and human-centered design practice in rural communities, with her most current role as the Director of Operations and Innovation for The Oda Foundation based in Western Nepal. She graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California with a B.S. in Business Administration.

Emily’s prior experience includes working in Panama where she was challenged to investigate ways in which the community and the private sector could collectively implement solutions that were sustainable and scalable through design thinking tactics.

She believes her role as a catalyst is to empower locals to think creatively and make informed decisions on their advancement; fundamentally shifting the narrative from these communities being considered victims to instead being champions of their own development.

After tackling diverse social issues from various angles, including three years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, working in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy for Fortune 500 companies, she was ready to return to the development sector to better understand intersectional poverty associated with climate change, gender, healthcare, education access and more.

Her primary goal is to support disadvantaged societies in ways that allow local economies to thrive and enable cultural values to flourish. She hopes to leverage her time at Georgetown to determine her area of expertise.

In her free time you can find her dancing with her headphones in, practicing yoga, playing pickleball or at a comedy show.

Why GHD?

I chose GHD because I felt the authentic sense of care from the professors, administrators and peers through the application process. Now that I am a year into the program, the support is even stronger than I could have imagined. The program has a holistic approach to development intertwined with unwavering guidance.