The Atlantic is announcing the promotions of Krystle Champagne-Norwood and Emily Gottschalk-Marconi to editorial leadership as managing editors. Krystle will continue to oversee the editorial strategy for The Atlantic’s extensive in-person and virtual events, and robust event partnerships across the country. Emily is managing editor for operations, and since moving from the business to editorial side of The Atlantic, she has played a central role in strengthening editorial operations and building the systems that support the organization’s daily work.
Internal announcements are below, both from editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg:
Dear everyone,
I’m very happy to share with you excellent news about a beloved colleague. I have asked Krystle Champagne-Norwood to take on greater responsibilities for us, in addition to a new title: managing editor. I’m extremely happy to say that she accepted, with alacrity (preternaturally calm alacrity, which is her preferred mode). In many ways, this promotion simply formalizes what you already know, that The Atlantic’s live journalism operation would cease to function without Krystle’s smarts, moxie, creativity, and leadership.
It has been evident to Adrienne and me for a long while—and to anyone who has crossed paths with Krystle—that she is endlessly talented. Krystle has a deep, intuitive understanding of The Atlantic’s culture and journalistic mission, and she is of course gifted in understanding how to bring our journalism to life on stage.
Krystle’s unflappability is well-known. Anyone who has participated in the Atlantic Festival, or another of our many live programs, knows that Krystle is constitutionally incapable of becoming flustered. Her under-pressure competence is a byproduct of hard work and preparation, as well as deep faith, and an ability to improvise, adapt and overcome when, say, we lose electricity in a theater (“This is a perfect opportunity to have a candlelit panel,” would be Krystle’s response, whereas mine would be, “I would like to go home now, please.”)
Krystle is a creative force and a natural leader, and having her join the ranks of our managing editors allows us to benefit from her broad journalism experience, though it’s important to note that we are looking to expand the realm of Edit-driven events quite substantially under her leadership in the coming years. In other words, she’ll be very busy.
About Emily:
Dear everyone,
As all of you already know, The Atlantic functions as well as it does in large part because Emily Gottschalk-Marconi makes it all happen. Her steel-trap mind, her unflappability, her kindness, creativity and hyper-competence, all combine to make her as close to indispensable as anyone who works here. As my chief of staff, and as director of newsroom operations, Emily is always innovating and solving problems or otherwise devising escape paths from crises large and small.
Over time, Emily’s responsibilities have grown substantially, and we wanted to acknowledge her work—and specifically how our journalism directly benefits from Emily’s leadership—by promoting her to a new role, Managing Editor for Operations. I know that this move will please quite literally everyone in our organization. Further empowering Emily only leads to good things for the rest of us.
Emily joined The Atlantic as part of the Live team in 2016, and when the opportunity came for Emily to join the Editorial team, we didn’t hesitate. She quickly made herself important to our daily operations, in more ways than would be possible to list, including ushering in such innovations as AirTable (Before AirTable, we simply shouted our story plans to each other across the halls of the Watergate, when we remembered to do so.) Emily believes deeply in the mission and culture of The Atlantic, and her devotion to what we do is evident in every aspect of her work. No detail or deadline escapes her (to my occasional chagrin, since one of her duties has been tracking my own deadlines, except, strangely, the deadline for this note, which is coming about 10 days later than expected). Much of the infrastructure we all rely on—and might not even notice, when it’s working as intended—is testament to her skill, hard work, and foresight.
This promotion recognizes Emily’s superior talent and the centrality of her role. Please join me in congratulating Emily on this well-earned promotion. She is easily embarrassed by praise, which should absolutely not stop you from expressing yourselves with flowery adjectives.
Press Contacts:
Anna Bross and Paul Jackson | The Atlantic
press@theatlantic.com
