It turns out that some of the most valuable experience Nicci Hicks has gained in her career comes from a company that failed.
In between her time as a general counsel for NetJets and her current employer, Nationwide Insurance, Hicks worked for a startup investment firm that folded after a year. Now that she finds herself in the midst of an industry being reshaped daily by startup companies, her ability to understand the startup mindset in an acute manner is helping.
“I do think that experience with the startup world is actually beneficial because they move fast,” she says. “They're very agile and they're very adaptable, and understanding their value propositions and Nationwide’s value prop is helpful in this position because I'm able to, um, reach across the aisle.”
Hicks, a lawyer by trade, came to Nationwide as a general counsel. Now, she works on the corporate development side, onboarding the third-party partners that are a key part of Nationwide’s strategy going forward. She said she was drawn to the insurance industry due to its commitment to helping customers become whole again after a castrophe.
“After the startup failed, I had the opportunity to be very introspective and think about what's next. What legacy do I want to leave? I've always been very committed to living a purpose-driven life, really trying to find ways to add value and really support people,” she says. “Here in Columbus, there are a number of insurance companies. And Nationwide stood out for its commitment to protecting people. I'm not from central Ohio, but when I moved here I saw the Nationwide name and all the community service that they support.”
And not only did Nationwide give her the opportunity to work for a company whose social-responsibility initiatives were attractive, it also brought her into an industry that offers more growth and innovation opportunities than meet the eye, Hicks continues.
“I started within legal and I was supporting the corporate development organization at the time. And that position revealed the passion about what they do. There's so many opportunities: You can be in communications, you can be in marketing, business development, sales, you name it. It was such a great industry to be in.”
Once she moved out of the legal organization, Hicks set about learning the business enough to form the partnership enablement team at Nationwide. The team was necessary as Nationwide looks to partnerships with companies of all kinds as a way to open up new markets for insurance. [
“When we partner with a company in some other industry, we want to know: How do their customers interact with them? How do we meet those customers where they are within that organization’s ecosystem?” she says. “We have someone on my team who really takes a step back and thinks about it from the outside. What do customers want? What's an ideal experience for them? How do we decrease the number of touch points to ensure that we're providing them with an offer that aligns with their shopping journey, what they're thinking about? So that is one aspect of the organization and thinking about that customer and partner experience, one of the things that's really important, of course, it's always been customer experience. Similar approach that we take care of is our partner experience and their customer's experience because they will likewise hopefully become our customers.”
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Nominating executive: Angie Klett, SVP, Corporate Development
What they said: "Nicci has exhibited tremendous leadership in her time at Nationwide. In her role as legal counsel to Nationwide’s strategic partnership organization, she demonstrated leadership through influence. Nicci helped us understand the risk and guided us toward solutions that would work. In her current role, she leads with authenticity. She focuses on pushing the team for results, developing the talent and unleashing each team members’ greatest potential."
