Blue Cork Strategies
We work with our clients to create intentional, strategic and effective partnership programs.
Blue Cork Strategies is a Washington DC-based boutique partnership agency. We collaborate with our clients to develop partnership strategies and a partnership-centric culture . We negotiate and implement mutually-beneficial value exchanges, maximize partnership revenue, and deliver high-touch account management to ensure successful and sustainable business relationships.
Solana VanderNat - Director of DC Office of Nightlife & Culture
Japer Bowles - Director of DC Office of LGBTQ Affairs
Meet the Founder
Emily E. Thornell is Blue Cork Strategies’ Managing Director. Emily has lived in Washington DC for 36 years and has real-world, local DC experience in creating highly-visible, complex, impactful and trusting business relationships. Emily over three decades of experience in high-growth, fast-paced entrepreneurial environments with both start-up companies and newly-created divisions or positions in large organizations. Her contributions have been heavily focused on successfully developing and managing external relationships, establishing strategic alliances & partnerships and securing revenue streams that align with KPIs. She has led the strategic planning and implementation of new business initiatives as an employee and while serving as a volunteer board member for several youth-oriented, non-profit organizations with a focus on fundraising and partnership development.
Emily successfully renewed and expanded the seven-figure, exclusive pouring rights partnership with PepsiCo to include both sales and marketing programs and developed a proactive account management process that led to improved communications and close collaboration on several high-profile local execution of national marketing programs. Emily secured a multi-year, seven-figure partnership with Astound (formerly RCN) as the first-ever Founding Partner of Events DC’s Entertainment & Sports Arena. Emily negotiated an exclusive partnership with Lyft as the Official Rideshare Partner of Events DC that incorporated a creative pricing strategy that provided both minimum guarantees and unlimited, incentive commissions based on venue-specific ride volume and secured Hilton as the first-ever Official Lodging Partner of Event DC’s Amateur Sports Initiative. Through complex negotiations, Emily significantly improved Events DC’s agreement with Ticketmaster that provided Events DC much greater pricing flexibility for ticketing across all of its venues, a key pain point for Events DC clients, staff and ticket buyers. Emily also served as the lead executive responsible for securing naming rights partners across Events DC’s venues and properties and managed the overall vision and day-to-day collaboration with a third-party sponsorship agency.
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Emily is an extroverted leader comfortable interacting across all levels of organizations especially with C-suite executives. Before founding Blue Cork Strategies, Emily served as the Director of Corporate Partnerships for Events DC, the official convention and sports authority for the District of Columbia. Emily was hired in 2016 to create, lead and manage Events DC’s highly-visible Corporate Partnerships Department. During her tenure Emily created Events DC’s first-ever Strategic Partnership Program and led sponsorship and partnership business development and marketing efforts with both brands and event properties. Emily specializes in the sports, entertainment and cultural space.
On behalf of the CEO, Emily also managed Events DC’s mulit-million dollar investment portfolio that provides financial support to DC-based events and programs that deliver a significant economic impact to Washington DC. Emily evaluated requests for investments and provided strategic recommendations on go/no go decisions and crafted custom entitlements in exchange for sponsorship investment. Emily has worked closely with the DC Jazz Festival, CitiOpen Tennis Tournament, Kastles WTT Tennis, The Washington International Horse Show, DC Bike Ride, The Military Bowl, The DC Chapter of the Recording Academy, Funk Parade, XFL DC Defenders, DC Rock ’n Roll Marathon, Premier Lacrosse League, The Old Glory Rugby Team, The American Ultimate Disc League, among others.
Emily’s previous experience includes executive and business development roles at FannieMae, comScore, BrightStreet.com, Paragren Technologies, Claritas and Booz*Allen & Hamilton.
Emily has an Executive Certificate in Partnerships & Alliances from The University of Virginia Darden School of Business, a MBA from George Mason University and a B.S. in Operations Management from the University of South Alabama. But don't be fooled, she is a Midwesterner at heart having grown up in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Emily has moderated or spoken on panels about Sports & Entertainment partnerships and sponsorships and has been invited as a guest lecturer at numerous colleges & universities to speak on marketing analytics, consumer segmentation and targeting strategies.
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Emily lives in Washington, DC with her husband Paul, two kids, two cats and a dog. Her son Nolie is a sophomore at Michigan State University and daughter Lena is an 8th grader at The Potomac School. She is an avid runner, Peloton enthusiast and loves live music, line dancing and margaritas.
