My passion for business started at a young age; always tinkering with everything from trying to resell barbies to selling make shift furniture. Along with that came my outgoing personality as well. My mom always mentions the story of little four year old Nicole, who would walk up to strangers and say hello, I would even hold some of their hands. To anyone that knows me well, they would say that I have a natural excitement towards making meaningful connections with people.
My Undergraduate/Graduate University
My drive to make meaningful connections along with my enthusiasm towards technology has geared me towards an interdisciplinary career path of marketing. I began my undergraduate degree in social and developmental studies because I love to help people. I fuel my internal fire and drive by helping others and making them feel appreciated. I decided that the policies around social work weren't for me and began exploring the tech field and decided that my creativity and love of people resulted in the field of marketing. Throughout my undergraduate degree, I volunteered in several marketing executive capacities with various University clubs. I was also on the founding team of a start up named uIntuition; that placed University students into project based roles that clients needed filled. Both my experiences with various marketing volunteer roles and with uIntuition fueled my inner joy of meeting with people and helping them. My marketing career path was accentuated through completing the Masters of Digital Experience Innovation (MDEI) where market research, e-commerce, branding and social media marketing were studied and applied. The entire master's program was project based, which required me to not only juggle multiple deadlines, but also to work successfully within a team based environment, while also completing my individual tasks with excellence. Each semester required us to complete 4-5 large scale marketing projects that required the ability to work quickly with quality results, while maintaining meetings despite conflicting team member schedules and various working styles. The marketing projects throughout the MDEI program required us to work with several clients, delivering final results beyond their expectations. Again, my internal excitement (fire) towards working with people and finding them the right solution was fueled. During my master's I was also able to help my mom in launching a service based business - CLiKK Photo Booth. I applied my skills in market research, branding, social media marketing and traditional marketing in helping my mom launch this business.
Through my experience with uIntuition, and CLiKK, I was afforded with the opportunity to work with various executives and key stakeholders within different organizations. I managed the client relationship starting from seeking out the client, all the way to closing the sale with the client. My internal drive for delivering solutions to help clients was fueled once again through this experience.
My past tech support experience with Intelligent Mechatronic Systems allowed me to gain skills in managing client accounts using a ticketing system through JIRA, technical troubleshooting abilities, and capturing feedback and relaying it to various key decision makers and implementers within the company. Through my experience with IMS, I was always striving to help the customers to the best of my abilities through exercising my positive attitude, technical knowledge, and patience; I fueled fire to help, and make connections after every interaction with a client.
My excitement towards e-commerce and marketing was fulfilled through creating an online thrift store experiment named The Thrifty Squirrel. The Thrifty Squirrel was started as a result of excess items that were either new and gently used. I had acquired several throughout my undergrad and upon moving back home, my parents advised me to get rid of my items as they were taking up too much space. My interest in marketing and the masters of digital experience innovation led me to solve this problem Nikki style. I decided it would be a branding exercise that turned into a successful e-commerce experience. I started with the logo and social media marketing. I listed items online, shared them to hundreds of Facebook groups, found paying clients, delivered the products to them, researched international shipping carriers, held two pop up shops, conducted two give aways and sold almost all of my items. Not only was this a successful experience, it also allowed me to continuously learn about social media marketing, using e-commerce websites (I used tictail.com), the world of shipping, and what type of features are needed from a e-commerce site to provide its users with a delightful experience.
People, social media marketing and research are my passions which I try to fulfil through all of my experiences. I have completed my Masters of Digital Experience Innovation and I am ready for my next adventure. The account manager role with The Shopify Plus team would certainly fuel my internal fire for meaningful connections and digital marketing.
-xo Nicole