Will McGuinness

Managing Director, Communications / Head of Education & Non-Profit Practice

Will McGuinness is a Managing Director, Communications and the Head of the Education & Non-Profit Practice at Perceptual Advisors. He brings more than 15 years of experience in media, communications, and academia to the Firm. 

His work includes leading media narratives on pivotal events and spearheading communications strategies for well-known organizations globally, including CBS, HuffPost, Latham & Watkins, L.L.P., and NASA.

Within the education sector, Will led digital and social media strategy at 2U, Inc., the parent company of edX. He also spent five years leading digital strategy at Columbia University before becoming the University's Director of Marketing, Communications, and Digital Initiatives. In that role, he created engagement strategies that led to record-breaking donations to the University’s annual giving day and supported its five-year, $5B fundraising campaign.

As a journalist, McGuinness was the lead editor of HuffPost’s higher education and education coverage and directed enterprise coverage of critical national events, including the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign, the Penn State sex abuse scandal, and developing trends in the generation gap between millennials and their predecessors. His reporting has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, The Boston Globe, The Advocate magazine, and other reputable publications.