Nicole K. Askew, M.A.

Phone: 614.747.6486

Email: nicole@mysmilingowl.com

Nicole Askew is an experienced organizational leader with expertise in people systems, management coaching, and problem resolution.  She has a professional background in education, organizational and strategic planning, marketing, project management, and business analysis.  She brings an innate ability to quickly assess the organizational culture and needs, directly expose opportunities and build action plans for improvement.

As the founder and CEO of Smiling Owl, Nicole has assisted local businesses with logo creation, branding, creating and implementing various systems, hiring, training, employee retention programs, establishing and maintaining an online presence, marketing plans and creating and generating dashboards. She has led teams through construction phase, licensing, creation and operating. Nicole enlightens small business owners with the opportunities available to ease their to-do lists and minds.

While a Senior Partner with Whitewater Strategies, Inc. she played a key role in the organization and performance turnarounds for struggling clients.  Nicole participated in the development of training and procedural outlines while ensuring OSHA PSM compliance.  She also improved communication with the employees who utilize such information.  She developed mentor systems and related people system support for recruiting and hiring, branding strategies, and business plans to attract candidates and new employees.  In all these efforts, she consistently endeavored to bridge communication gaps between executives and management and provided useful feedback as necessary.

Additionally, Nicole's professional experience includes Director of Recruiting, Retention, Training, and Development; Managing Director of the Operations and Administration Leadership Team; Director of People, Progress, and Performance; Acting Director of Business Development; Business Manager; and Educator.

Her educational background includes a Bachelor's degree in Cultural Anthropology and a Master's degree in Leadership and Management.

Her educational experience has led her to diverse locations such as India and Nepal where she provided emotional support for Tibetan refugees delivered through Art Therapy, assisted education development through English language instruction, and conducted humanitarian aid efforts to support children and adults dealing with loss of homes and families, physical trauma, and threats to the existance of their country and culture.  Her domestic educational experiences include counseling at-risk youth in topics such as dating, healthy versus unhealthy relationships, abuse, communication, and diversity training.  She also provided counseling and medical needs for homeless youths and adults.