Mixing work and play: How this founder and exec works from anywhere

It’s the fantasy many workers harbor during these cold winter months: logging into that weekly meeting beachside with a frosty cocktail in hand, or typing up a daily report from a small cafe on a Parisian boulevard.

For this executive, that dream is her day-to-day reality. Mary Elizabeth Elkordy is the founder of PR firm Elkordy Global Strategies, and she manages a team of 27 employees scattered across the globe. On any given day, she might be “work-cationing” with a view of the Egyptian pyramids, or doing a rooftop happy hour with her team in New York City.

“Having a remote job has given me a lot of freedom to be able to work anywhere and not be bound to going to a specific office, or with the expectation of having to be somewhere all the time,” she says. “It's not from the lack of wanting to do work. It's just from wanting to be in other places.”

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Elkordy considers herself a digital nomad — remote workers who travel from place to place instead of settling in one spot. Since the start of COVID, more than 10.9 million people have identified as digital nomads, a 49% increase from pre-COVID rates, according to workforce solutions platform, MBO partners.

For Elkordy — who was working and traveling pre-pandemic, too — living as a digital nomad has helped redefine what work can be and how to find a balance between career expectations and life goals.

“It's important to figure out what's that thing that helps you de-stress even if you're still working, and for me, it’s being in Egypt and having lunch by the pyramids,” she says. “Anyone who's creating or running a business understands the idea that you don't really take days off, because the buck stops with you. I might not be able to take time off like normal people, but I can do work elsewhere. And that’s the compromise I’ve made.”

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Elkordy says that freeing herself from the boundaries of a workspace — and a time zone — has been beneficial to her as a boss and business owner. It’s made her more open to new perspectives, and more agile in responding to challenges with clients and coworkers.

“We're a global business — we work with people all over the world so I can understand different personalities much better than I could before,” she says. “There might be some opportunities that come out of going places and meeting new people or connections, and I have that open-mindedness with my employees as well.”

She’s setting an example for her employees, too. Providing a flexible work environment has helped her recruit top talent. Framing how employees get work done, as opposed to where, is an important lesson other leaders need to learn, she says.

“Finding good talent is not easy, and for me, skills are important, but I hire for personality and hustle,” she says. “I care less about where they are, and having a diverse group of people from different countries and different cultures can only improve how we do business.”

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This year, Elkordy plans to visit Poland, Sweden and various states in the U.S. Of course, travel restrictions and COVID variants have most of us grounded, and Elkordy herself has an apartment in Washington, D.C. she is currently using as a home base. But acknowledging that work can happen anytime, anywhere, is something we should all lean into.

“I think COVID has taught everyone that at any moment, life can change, so what are you doing with your time?” Elkordy says. “It’s a perspective that has opened a lot of doors for me.”