Emily Hughes showed great promise as an Olympic figure skater , but retired young to pursue the possibilities of a career in business. Hughes began training early and published a children’s book, I Am a Skater, in 2002, the year her older sister Sarah won an Olympic gold medal. Emily Hughes earned a bronze medal of her own at the 2005 World Junior Figure Skating Championships. Later that year, after recovering from a bout of viral meningitis, she competed at the Grand Prix, placing fourth. She was a member of the 2006 Olympic skating team and was the 2007 US National silver medalist. Despite injuries and a full course load at Harvard, she continued to compete in national and international championships but retired from competition in 2010. She graduated from Harvard in 2011 with a sociology degree and began a legislative internship with the US Senate. After a brief stint as a business analyst with Deloitte Consulting, she announced that she would begin working for Google in 2015. In 2017, she joined the Athlete Advisory Council at the United States Olympic Committee, leaving in 2020 to pursue an opportunity at Meta as a Product Marketing Manager. In November 2023, she began working for Grandstand, a sports-related start-up.