Her hard work and success were recognized by PR News, which named Akhtar a “Rising Star for 2021.” The Rising Star awards—presented at a July 28 virtual gala—celebrate those who are “in the early stages of their careers but have already demonstrated remarkable work.”

Akhtar said it was great to earn this recognition after a year that has been so challenging, but also gratifying.

“Going to graduate school [to get an Executive MBA], becoming a mother, and working full time during the pandemic was hard,” she said. “I don’t want to glorify this or recommend this route to everyone. However, there’s nothing that lights a fire under your butt as having a little one to take care of. Becoming a mother gave me so much focus and purpose.”

Key to Diversity Efforts

Gina Vergel, Fordham’s senior director of communications, said that Akhtar has been essential in the department’s efforts of diversity, equity, and inclusion, not just internally, but also in partnership with the communities where Fordham is located.

“It’s not just about having diversity here on this floor, or on our board, or among our students, but it’s also about the way we interact with the Bronx and with other parts of New York City,” Vergel said. “And though we’ve always talked about it, having Ayesha here has really given us a complete new understanding about it.”

Knowing the Bronx

Vergel, who was recognized as a ‘Top Woman’ in PR by PRNews last year, said that Akhtar’s deep knowledge of the Bronx has helped Fordham connect with local media outlets to get the word out about University events and efforts. She’s also kept the communications team informed of things happening in the neighborhood.

“All of that helps us as a department and then as a university at large understand the area in which our university campuses are located better,” Vergel said.

Amplifying the Work of Professors and Students

In her role as assistant director of communications, Akhtar’s main responsibilities include getting the University’s story, its professors, and its work covered in the media, as well as following the latest media trends to see where Fordham’s faculty knowledge could be useful.

“I work primarily with professors in order to get their work placed in the media—if somebody is working on a research project that connects to current news, or if somebody is writing a book and wants media attention for that,” she said, “and I also just get our professors’ general expertise out in the news as well.”

Recently, she placed a story in the Christian Science Monitor highlighting the work that Professor Mark Naision and his students have been doing to capture the voices of Bronx residents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, known as the Bronx COVID-19 Oral History Project.

“It’s not just the professors—it’s the Fordham story that gets out on the whole,” she said about this piece. “And it’s also not only about Fordham expertise, but it’s also central to what’s happening in the Bronx, which I think was really special.”

Vergel said that one of Akhtar’s biggest strengths is her ability to connect with and work for the local communities, particularly the Bronx. Akhtar played a key part in producing new webpages for undergraduate students that help them connect with their neighborhoods, Vergel said.

Connecting people with the resources of their neighborhoods has been a mission of Akhtar’s. In 2018, she helped found LAAL NYC, a nonprofit that provides assistance to Bengali women living in the Norwood section of the Bronx. Though she stepped down from the nonprofit’s executive leadership after becoming a mom, the organization continues its mission of helping Bengali women with the basics, such as learning English, nutrition, medical care, paying bills and housing.

At Fordham, Ahktar said she wants to continue to work with faculty, especially younger faculty members, to help them become comfortable with media appearances and give them exposure.

“People who just came on, people who are really early on in their careers and want to be in the media and have opinions—I want to know more about them, and I’m really excited to work with them,” she said.

Akhtar said that she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish all she did over the past year without the flexibility and support provided by Vergel and Bob Howe, assistant vice president for communications and special adviser to the president.

“I’m given an enormous amount of trust to do my job. The only way I was able to have a job, complete the MBA, and have a baby is because of flexibility—flexibility in conjunction with having a really good manager who really deeply understood the experience of becoming a mother in today’s workplace. So I think that’s key to my success.”

The class of honorees chosen by PRNews last month represent women trailblazers in the field who think outside the box and who demonstrated significant passion for their work.

Bob Howe, assistant vice president for communications and special adviser to the president who has worked with Vergel since she started at Fordham in 2007, said the honor was extremely well deserved.

“She’s just stellar,” he said. “She sets the kind of tone that I like for collegiality and for inclusiveness in the department. And I trust her implicitly. Any boss would be lucky to have somebody like Gina as their right hand.”

Vergel oversees a shop of eight people, including the Fordham News team and the University’s social media director. She started at Fordham as a staff writer; around 2010, she began her work in media relations, pitching Fordham’s stories and faculty expertise to local and national outlets.

Under her direction, the University averages more than 10,000 global media mentions per quarter, with faculty appearing in national and local publications such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and CNN.com, and on television and radio stations including NY1, MSNBC, and WNYC.

Vergel credits her time as a staff writer with helping her develop relationships with professors whom she would later pitch to the media.

“That is the best way to get to know faculty, administrators, and even some students,” she said, noting that she’s grateful she covered so many topics and departments as a News staffer. “One day, you could be interviewing a mathematics professor, the next day, a biology professor. That’s how you build connections.”

Many of the faculty members are just as grateful to her—both for the media placements and her guidance.

“I think she’s fabulous. First of all, she’s an incredible powerhouse with making connections,” said Paul Levinson, Ph.D., professor of communication and media studies. “I really consider myself lucky that Fordham has someone with Gina’s level of commitment and professionalism, because it’s helped me a lot.”

Mark Conrad, an associate professor of law and ethics, said that Vergel’s success with media placements has improved Fordham’s profile.

“She added a degree of urgency, pizzazz, and I think, a really good working strategy with faculty who want to get to be noticed in the media,” he said. “[Fordham is] in the same city as Columbia and NYU, and chances are most media tended to go to them, because of the name recognition.” But thanks to Vergel’s know-how and connections, he said, reporters regularly seek out Fordham experts.

Vergel attributes her success, in part, to finding the right angles and the right reporters.

“With the media landscape, reporters are so overworked right now, having to be on 24/7,” she said. “So trying to get their attention can be difficult, and so I try to be very mindful of that, because I was a reporter. So I’m not sending blanket pitches to just a huge list.”

Before Fordham, Vergel was an award-winning reporter for Home News Tribune and Ridgewood News in New Jersey, her home state, where she also reported for radio stations WRNJ and WGHT. She earned a B.A. from William Patterson University and a master’s in organizational leadership from Fordham’s Graduate School of Education.

Christina Greer, Ph.D., associate professor of political science, said that Vergel brings both an easygoing attitude and a professional skillset to the job.

“She’s fun. I’ve got 1,000 different things going on, and so to work with someone who has an easygoing temperament is great but also, she knows her job really well,” said Greer, who regularly appears on stations such as MSNBC and WNYC. “All of our interactions have just been clear communication, positive energy, high energy.”

Greer said that Vergel’s work not only benefits the University community, it also brings academic expertise to people who might not have gone to college.

“It’s great for alumni because they like to see their university represented in national and international outlets,” Greer said. “It’s great for recruiting because I get lots of people on Twitter who say, ‘I can’t wait to apply to Fordham because if I can get you as a professor, this is awesome.’ And also, not everyone is fortunate enough to go to college …. So whenever I do outward facing stuff, I view it as regular people getting to spend five or 10 minutes with a professor.”

While Vergel still does a lot of pitching in her current role, she’s also very involved with communications strategy decisions.

“For a lot of the news, even a lot of marketing-type decisions, I’m brought in to consult on different strategies that we’ll take, how we put word out there via social media,” she said. “You have your hands in everything that has to do with telling Fordham’s story.”

Howe said Vergel’s a natural storyteller who is gifted in finding stories that appeal to different populations. She’s also been essential, he said, to the University’s efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“She has been good at helping me and [the Department of Alumni and University Relations], in thinking through how we approach issues of race, especially from a Latina perspective,” he said.

Vergel said she’s incredibly grateful for the recognition from PRNews as she’s used to being “behind the scenes.” And as the daughter of immigrants, she’s especially proud of what she’s achieved.

“I feel it was in my parents’ wildest dreams. When they came to this country from Colombia in 1970, they had to do menial labor. My father was a custodian and my mother worked in a factory. They wanted to have their children here for us to have opportunities. They’ve just been incredibly proud of us,” she said.