Director of Marketing & Development, Dixon Hughes
By Jennifer Nugent
“When I was a teenager and thought I wanted to be an actress, I bought a one-way Greyhound bus ticket from Charleston to New York City. I didn’t have a place to stay so I ended up at the Chelsea Hotel for a few days before I ran out of money and had to come home. I’ve never had the internal stop sign that makes people quit before they truly get started. I wanted to go to New York, I did. I wanted to live in London, I did. I wanted to publish a book, I did. I’ve always known that if I was ever to achieve something, I had to make it happen myself.”
Emily Bennington, the director of marketing and development for Dixon Hughes, says she got where she is today through sheer force of will.
That, and “Gene Kelly Dance Steps” didn’t hurt, either.
The phrase was introduced by her former boss Skip Lineberg and represents a more personal way of doing business. “Evidently,” she says, “Gene Kelly was a master of details—things like a signature tip of the hat, perfectly shined shoes—and it was these ‘little things’ that added up to make him one of the greats.”
At the beginning of her career, Bennington used the same principle—excelling at the little things—to stand out as a young professional. She began keeping a journal of observations regarding “Gene Kelly Dance Steps” at work and recently co-wrote with Lineberg a self-help guide for young professionals based on those notes. “Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up on Your First Real Job” will be published by an imprint of Random House next April. “It took about four years to get the book published, so it wasn’t something that happened overnight,” she says. “I have truly enjoyed the journey, but I can’t wait to finally get it out in the market.”
A native of Charleston, Bennington’s formative years consisted of obsessing over fashion and dreaming of becoming the editor in chief of Vogue magazine. While attending the University of Pittsburgh, she fell in love with marketing and, after graduating with a degree in communications and English writing, she landed back in the Capitol City. “My first real job was with Hyperion Creative Group which later became Maple Creative,” she recalls. “I had just returned home after college and I was literally in United Talent looking for work at a marketing agency when Hyperion called and needed someone to start the next day. It must have been fate because they hired me immediately and put me to work on Joe Albright’s Supreme Court campaign.”
Bennington only intended to stay in West Virginia for six months after graduation and already had an apartment and a roommate waiting for her in New York City. That was 10 years ago. “Aside from my family,” she says, “what makes me stay is the desire to see West Virginia fulfill her untapped potential. Through my work with the Governor’s Council of Young Professionals, Generation Charleston, Generation West Virginia and Leadership West Virginia, I truly believe that the Golden Age of this state is just around the corner—and I’m proud to be part of an amazing group of people that are helping to make it happen.”
Bennington says that her motivation comes from the old saying that if you love what you do, then you never work a day in your life. “I genuinely have a passion for marketing, writing and helping young professionals become extraordinary leaders. If it were just a job for me, I wouldn’t have this abnormal drive. Michelangelo once said, ‘Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish,’ and I have the same prayer. I never want to stop climbing.”
