Author of Deep Listening, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, King's College London, Former BBC Media Executive
Emily Kasriel offers a unique approach to communication through Deep Listening, fostering deeper connections built on curiosity, empathy, and respect. She works with leaders and communities facing polarization, helping to create environments where people feel truly heard. With her upcoming book, Deep Listening, Emily brings fresh insights and practical strategies that will resonate with audiences seeking to improve relationships and communication in both personal and professional settings.
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Distracted by our own agenda, we so often hear without understanding, impatiently waiting for our turn to speak. In this exploration of transformational listening, Emily Kasriel shows how shifting from surface-level exchanges to Deep Listening can enrich our relationships, enhance our effectiveness as leaders, and strengthen the fabric of our organizations. At a time when divisions within organizations and communities are often a profound challenge, Kasriel offers inspiration and practical guidance on how we can better listen to each other, even when we fiercely disagree.
In the midst of rapidly changing technology, a hybrid post-pandemic work environment, and profound social polarization, it is more important than ever for today’s leaders to be able to truly listen to – and connect with – their teams. By embracing Deep Listening, leaders can strengthen their empathy, enhance the connectivity within their organizations, and foster genuine understanding across cultural, political, and generational divides. Drawing on scientific studies, new research, and powerful stories, Emily Kasriel unveils her simple yet transformative eight-step approach.
As an acclaimed BBC journalist, Emily Kasriel is an experienced and adept moderator. Her empathy, curiosity, and warmth allow her to put her interview subjects at ease while getting the most out of an onstage conversation, panel discussion, or fireside chat.
Emily is also available for in-depth, interactive workshops on Deep Listening. For more details, please contact WWSG.
Emily is an experienced media executive who has led a range of high-profile projects on staff for the BBC as well as reporting and producing for the BBC from five continents.
She has developed the Deep Listening approach as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College Policy Institute in London and previously as a Practitioner in Residence at the London School of Economics. She has also drawn on her decade long experience as an Executive Coach, accredited with the Association for Coaching, and more recently as a workplace mediator.
Emily has led the BBC British Council Crossing Divides around the Globe project, signing up more than 1000 young people from 119 countries for her training in Deep Listening – following a pilot of 150 in Lebanon, 300 IBM executives from across Europe; executive coaches from multiple organizations, and cohorts of leaders from the the Boston Consulting Group to McDonald’s with the UK’s Forward Institute for responsible leadership.
In her work at BBC News she led projects spanning BBC Crossing Divides to SoICanBreathe to setting up and running the BBC News Komla Dumor Award for African journalists – as well as leading arts and culture, religion and then the ideas department at the BBC World Service.
She was previously a Senior Adviser to the Skoll Foundation and a Visiting Fellow at Said Business School at the University of Oxford. She has written for a number of major publications and chairs a wide range of panels, events and interviews around the world, and is on the board of the Wingate Foundation. She has been awarded an MA from the University of Oxford and another from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University on a Rotary Fellowship.
Emily’s book, Deep Listening is being published by HarperCollins UK and US in May/June 2025.
Emily brought enormous energy and insights to our senior leadership strategy sessions. Her research findings on deep listening combined with her humor and breadth of stories yielded a rich and enjoyable opportunity to connect the leaders of our organization to the importance of building connection and truly hearing each other. Against the backdrop of our polarized geopolitics, developing these skills is especially valuable. I would not hesitate to work with Emily again and recommend her to others seeking an external voice to help their organizations develop.
Executive Vice President, Atlantic Council
