Alumni Spotlight: Audrey Green Bandopadhay 
Story by Communications major Graeme Melcher

In the digital age, print newspapers and magazines are all but extinct, but journalism is still alive and well in the realm of the Internet: a branch that has been pursued by a Dreyfoos alumna to great success. Class of 2012 Communications major Audrey Green Bandopadhay has gone from writing for the school newspaper to shaping the journalism industry at Hearst as Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships.

“I think when a lot of people hear the word ‘partnerships’, they think of sales or something of that realm, but I do a lot of business development and distribution,” Bandopadhay said. “So anywhere that Hearst Magazine’s content ends up off platform – think Apple News, MSN, any external distribution partner that we have.”

As a communications major, Bandopadhay “dabbled” in speech and debate, as well as her main focuses, film classes and journalism as a member of The Muse, Dreyfoos’ student-run newsmagazine.

“It has prepared me so well to work in journalism,” Bandopadhay said of her time on The Muse. “You get really used to working across so many different aspects, like sales, because members of Muse have to sell our ad inventory.”

In her senior year, Bandopadhay was promoted to Editor-in-Chief of the publication under the leadership of former Muse advisor Stephen Moore.

“When he made me Editor-in-Chief, he just gave me so many valuable lessons in terms of how to manage my peers,” Bandopadhay said. “Like, ‘Here’s how you can help motivate someone who’s falling behind a little bit.’”

Bandopadhay also credits the influence of English teacher Geoff Johnston, who passed away in June after 33 years of teaching.

“Mr. Johnston had us do these presentations that I think were an hour long each, and we had to present about a book and lead a Socratic seminar based on our learnings from that book, and we weren’t allowed to use a script, so we had to memorize our entire presentation,” Bandopadhay said. “I don’t think you realize in high school how much public speaking is going to play into your career, whether you’re a doctor talking to a team of doctors, or someone who works in a corporate setting giving a presentation to a large staff.”

After graduating from Dreyfoos, Bandopadhay attended New York University while interning at CBS, Gotham Comedy Club, and comedy production company Above Average. She worked as a business strategist for Viacom and even worked for a season on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon before leaving New York for Los Angeles and joining the partnerships team at Hearst.

“No matter where you work, communication is always going to be a factor, and people will look at you and judge you based on how well you can communicate, whether it’s communicating on behalf of a brand or communicating your ideas,” Bandopadhay said. “When I see that someone has a background in journalism on their resume and I’m hiring for my team, I’m like, ‘You have a great work ethic, you’re curious about the world, you’re going to ask a lot of questions, you’re going to be proactive about things.’”

Bandopadhay also values her background with a grandmother who survived the Holocaust, volunteering with the organization Living Links for fellow grandchildren of survivors.

“I think it’s really important for people to have things that ‘fill their cup’ outside of work, and being able to help other people preserve their family stories, being able to share my grandmother’s experience of surviving the Holocaust in classroom settings, has just been very rewarding, personally,” Bandopadhay said.

As she moves forward in her career, Bandopadhay says she wants to continue to pursue marketing and communications, but she acknowledges that the field is changing.

“I think what’s next for journalism will be really whatever form things take – all of these publishers, magazines, newspapers, broadcast networks are really just going to have to meet their audience where they are,” Bandopadhay said. “The role of journalists is never really going to diminish. It may just look a little bit different wherever it ends up.”