Andrew Brodsky
Most organisations have built hybrid operating models without ever deciding which conversations belong on which channel. Email, video, instant message and phone get used by reflex, and the cost shows up in fractured trust, slow decisions and meetings that produce noise rather than alignment. The question is no longer whether to work remotely. It is which medium to use, for what conversation, and what that choice does to performance.
Andrew Brodsky is a management professor at the McCombs School of Business and the author of Ping, whose research shows leaders how channel choice in virtual communication shapes trust, decisions and team performance.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Andrew Brodsky
- He gives leadership teams a named, research-backed framework, PING (Perspective-taking, Initiative, Non-verbal cues, Goals), that turns ad hoc virtual habits into a deliberate operating practice.
- His evidence is original, not aggregated: peer-reviewed studies in the Journal of Applied Psychology and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin on how channel choice changes what gets said, heard and believed.
- He answers a question most consultants avoid: when is audio better than video, when does email outperform a meeting, and what does that mean for managers who default to whatever is easiest.
- His client roster includes Dell Technologies, PwC, Amazon and Novo Nordisk, which means the work has been pressure-tested inside organisations running global hybrid operations.
- The book Ping, published by Simon & Schuster and Penguin, has been endorsed by Adam Grant and Katy Milkman, placing his work alongside the leading voices in applied behavioural science.
Biography highlights
- Management professor, McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin
- PhD in Organizational Behavior, Harvard Business School; BS, The Wharton School
- Author, Ping: The Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication (Simon & Schuster, Penguin, 2025)
- CEO and founder, Ping Group
- Named one of the world’s Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors by Poets&Quants
- Research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin; commentary in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, CNBC, The New York Times and TIME
Biography
Hybrid work settled the location question and left a harder one open. Inside most companies, the decision about which channel to use for which conversation is still made by habit. The cost is measurable: slower decisions, weaker trust, meetings that exist to compensate for messages that should never have been sent.
Brodsky has built a research programme around that gap. His peer-reviewed work in the Journal of Applied Psychology and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin examines the operating consequences of specific channel choices, from how email shapes emotional authenticity to why audio-only calls often outperform video. The findings are precise enough to act on, which is unusual in a field crowded with generalities about remote work.
The book Ping, published by Simon & Schuster and Penguin in 2025, consolidates that research into a four-part framework used inside teams at Dell Technologies, PwC, Amazon and Novo Nordisk. Adam Grant and Katy Milkman have endorsed the work, and HBR IdeaCast featured the argument as a guide for leaders auditing their own virtual practices.
His credibility rests on a clear point: virtual communication is now an executive skill, not a logistics question. Boards and senior teams that treat it as the latter pay the cost in performance.
Key speaking topics
- Virtual and hybrid communication strategy
- Channel choice and operating performance
- Leadership in distributed teams
- Trust and authenticity in digital workplaces
- Conflict reduction across asynchronous communication
- AI in workplace communication
- Inclusion in remote and hybrid settings
Ideal for
- CHROs and heads of people redesigning hybrid operating models
- Executive teams auditing the performance cost of their meeting and communication habits
- Transformation and digital workplace leads setting team-level communication norms
- Senior leadership offsites focused on trust, decision speed and team effectiveness
Audience outcomes
- A working framework for matching communication channel to task, with named criteria
- Specific research findings on when email, audio, video and instant message each outperform the alternatives
- A clear view of how leadership behaviour in virtual channels shapes trust and response patterns across teams
- Practical guidance on reducing conflict and misinterpretation in asynchronous communication
- A defensible position on AI-assisted interpersonal communication and the trust consequences of getting it wrong
Talks
A research-led keynote on how leaders and teams can match communication channels to task for better decisions, stronger trust and less wasted time.
Key takeaways:
- The PING framework applied to daily executive communication choices
- When to choose email, audio, video or instant message, and the evidence behind each
- How leadership communication patterns reshape team behaviour at scale
A practical session on leadership presence and motivation when most management happens through a screen.
Key takeaways:
- How leaders sustain credibility and motivation across virtual and hybrid teams
- Behavioural cues that signal trust, urgency and expectation in digital channels
- Concrete shifts in leadership routine that improve engagement in distributed teams
A session on how emotion travels, and distorts, across digital channels, and what leaders can do about it.
Key takeaways:
- Why text-based messages are systematically misread and the patterns behind it
- The role of non-verbal compensation in maintaining authenticity at distance
- Specific techniques for reducing conflict and rebuilding trust after digital misfires
On the mechanics of relationship-building when most contact is mediated.
Key takeaways:
- Why frequency of contact outweighs richness for sustaining trust
- Concrete routines that build connection across time zones and channels
- The leadership behaviours that make distributed teams feel coherent rather than fragmented
A talk on how virtual tools can widen, or narrow, who gets heard at work.
Key takeaways:
- How channel design shapes who contributes and who stays silent
- Practical adjustments to meeting and message practice that expand participation
- The research evidence on virtual communication and inclusive outcomes