The Harrington School of Communication and Media warmly welcomes alum, Andrew Fleischer ‘11, as the new Chairman of the Executive Advisory Council. Andrew leads a New York City-based team of Digital Marketing Experts, Data Analysts, & Media Specialists within Google’s Global Business Organization that partner with the CEOs and CMOs of Google’s largest and most sophisticated advertisers to grow their businesses. His team’s primary focus is within the Education Sector; working with University and EdTech leaders to meet the challenges and changing needs of today’s higher education environment, and evangelizing the role of AI in the complex marketing ecosystem.

What was your major as an undergraduate at URI?
Communication Studies

What has your career looked like since you graduated?
Immediately following graduation, I returned to the New York City area and joined iHeartMedia where I worked with Fortune 100 brands to help them with integrated marketing campaigns across radio, events, and digital properties. After that, I joined Google in 2015, so I’m coming up on just about 10 years now, living and working across both San Francisco and New York.

I’ve held various positions across Google starting with our retail practice, where I worked with the largest e-commerce brands, and then within the Education vertical, working with higher ed and EdTech companies. Then, I moved into a leadership role leading a team across our App marketing business. I helped customers with their mobile app strategy, acquiring and retaining users  working across some really cool industries.  This role also provided me the opportunity to have international scope, leading teams across Brazil and Spanish Speaking Latin America.

For almost the last two years, I returned to the  Education and Careers vertical, and have been leading our New York City based team. I’m working with a flurry of higher education institutions and EdTech companies. My team helps leading Higher Ed institutions and EdTech companies with student acquisition across Google Ads and YouTube.

How would you say URI contributed to your career success?
I found my marketing classes to be the most rewarding; everything I’ve done professionally is deeply involved with marketing. I also had Gail Alofsin as a professor and I’m still in touch with her to this day; I come and speak to her classes sometimes. Overall, I think it’s really important and meaningful to form relationships with someone who really pushes you and believes in you.

As the new Chairman of the Executive Advisory Council at the Harrington School, what do you hope you achieve in this new role?
I’ve been involved with the Harrington council since 2020, and when the opportunity to serve as chairman was floated, I was thrilled to step into this position. I think there is so much opportunity, especially with younger alumni, to be more involved in a few different ways. Mentorship is a huge opportunity and making sure that students understand that when you go to a university, it’s what you learn in the classroom, and it’s the network that can be provided to you if you embrace it. And I don’t think students fully know how to do that. I also think modernizing the curriculum can better prepare students for the workforce. I want there to be more outcome focused efforts for careers, like public speaking. One of the most valuable skills a person can have is public speaking. Not many people will go on to be generic public speakers, but you need that skill in any job to tell a story – especially in marketing.

Overall, I want to make sure that the Harrington council is representative of the school’s mission, and segment our responsibilities as council members into three buckets: Advisors (for students, alumni, prospective students), Advocates for the university as a whole, and philanthropy; higher education is build on this and I want to put our resources to hard use.

I believe in Harrington’s mission to be the best in class within the  media and communications practices, and in an ever-evolving industry, and with the right alumni insight , it can stay on the forefront and compete with the best of the best.

What’s your favorite part about what you do?
I’m often asked, “What gives you purpose in the day to day?” and I think what I do for Google inherently fulfills that purpose. My team changes people’s lives and gives them access to education and career opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t be afforded to them.  Without that first YouTube ad or that first click on Google Search, they may never have exposure to a prospective university. So this opportunity of marrying what gives me purpose in the day to day from a career perspective with something in my personal life is really exciting.  I hope that we can make a big dent, and raise the bar for Harrington in the years that I serve Chairman.