Nicola has a proven track record of developing, delivering and managing successful corporate social responsibility activities, events and campaigns throughout her career. With extensive experience of working with business partners, local communities and third sector organisations she is passionate about delivering top quality initiatives that bring positive change to those involved.
Nicola’s current role at the BBC involves designing, planning and producing high-profile events to attract a more diverse workforce to technical roles within BBC Digital. To date this has included two successful Women in Tech events, a People with Disabilities in Tech conference, autism awareness and unconscious bias sessions for staff and further events in the pipeline include a Make an App day for girls and disability confidence training for hiring managers.
Prior to joining BBC Digital Nicola was responsible for overseeing and managing the BBC national employee volunteering scheme within BBC Outreach along with leading on the community affairs work at MediaCity in Salford. This involved creating mutually-beneficial partnerships with other BBC departments and editorial teams and delivering a range of original, high-quality and successful audience-focused events.
Before joining the BBC Nicola worked at The Manufacturing Institute (TMI) where she set up the education liaison team for the TMI charity and created and led the ‘Make It’ campaign – a successful national STEM programme of events (the aim of which was to develop a pipeline of talent for the UK’s manufacturing and engineering industries).
As Make It Campaign Manager Nicola developed and led the campaign from concept through to an initiative that successfully won significant public funding and was cited as an example of best practice in a House of Commons debate (www.makeit.org.uk). Other key achievements included recruiting twenty-five corporate sponsors and supporters including Rolls Royce, Premier Foods, BAE Systems, Sellafield, Robert Wiseman Dairies and Jaguar Land Rover; delivering a range of imaginative and engaging Make It events for over 60,000 young people from hundreds of schools and colleges and creating volunteering opportunities for over 1000 employees from shop floor operatives to managing directors.
With two small children at home Nicola doesn’t have a great deal of spare time but when she does get a few minutes to herself she likes to head to the gym (well, either that or curl up on the sofa with a large box of chocolates and the remote control!).