As Associate Vice President of Social Content and Emerging Media at the NBA, Ashley Atwell oversees a social media team of more than 20 individuals responsible for capturing, editing and publishing content across all NBA social and digital platforms. Under Atwell’s oversight, the NBA has built one of the largest social media communities in the world with 2.1 billion likes and followers globally across league, team and players accounts and has generated record video views across various social media platforms. Additionally, Atwell and her team help collaborate with key media and technology partners, and has identified and leveraged emerging media platforms such as TikTok to reach and engage new audiences. Recently, Atwell helped launch NBA Arena in Meta’s Horizon Worlds, a series of immersive virtual reality NBA games.

Atwell joined the NBA in 2013 as a Digital Products Team Account Manager working with all 30 NBA teams to optimize their apps, websites and social media content. She later joined the NBA’s Digital Products and Emerging Technology team that implemented various emerging tech products, including the NBA’s first-ever Messenger bot, the NBA emoji app, “NBAmoji,” and “Rapid Replay” in the NBA app. During her tenure, the NBA’s social content team has won various industry awards, including Hashtag Sports Awards, Clio Sports Awards and others.

Atwell earned a master’s degree in sport management at the University of San Francisco and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama. She currently resides in Hoboken, New Jersey.