About Mac Cordell

Mac Cordell has spent nearly three decades moving between roles that don't usually belong to the same person: journalist, pastor, policy advisor, education leader, crisis communicator. That's the foundation for Cordell Advisory.

A superintendent doesn't need someone who can draft a clean press release. They need someone who's actually sat on more than one side of the table when a decision goes public, and knows what's really at stake there.

Mac began as a freelance reporter in college. After school, he took a position as Director of Publications for the Pennsylvania Builders Association, before taking the role of Director of Communications for an international nonprofit.

Mac then returned to journalism and worked his way up to editor-in-chief over the years that followed. He learned what actually makes something newsworthy, how a good leader can drive even a difficult narrative, and what it looks like when a leader gets caught unprepared.

For more than a decade of that same stretch, he was also a bivocational pastor. He learned the particular skill of sitting with an individual, family, congregation, or community through a hard season. Mac has a way of telling someone something painful in a way that authentically leaves them feeling cared for, not handled.

Along the way, Mac has done freelance PR for law enforcement agencies, religious organizations, business startups, and nonprofits. He currently serves as the communications and policy director for national organizations, doing federal and state advocacy work for refugee and immigrant students.