Jackie Nickel teaches marketing management and a management seminar in the Department of Economics and Business. She joined the faculty in 2020, bringing to her teaching nearly three decades of broad experience in marketing and brand management. She also provides faculty support and coaching for the Hope Entrepreneurship Initiative and the Center for Leadership.

Nickel has spent much of her business career to date with three firms: Coca-Cola, Abbott Laboratories and Amway. She joined The Coca-Cola Company in 1995 as an associate brand manager for Coca-Cola Classic and rose to directing package innovation and new product development for the U.S. division. At Abbott Labs (2004–2008) she managed a 150-member Ohio-based integrated marketing department, and then moved to Europe for two years to serve as regional director of Abbott’s $180 million nutrition business in the UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the Nordic nations and Switzerland.

In 2008 she returned to the United States to join Amway and became vice president for global brand management, leading development and execution of global brand strategies in the firm’s nutrition, beauty and water categories. In that role she also elevated organizational capability by assessing staff learning needs, identifying learning outcomes, and overseeing the development and execution of learning plans. From 2013 to 2019 she was Amway’s chief marketing officer for the Americas, leading the marketing organization for 16 North American and Latin American nations.

Nickel is as committed to the education of the youngest learners as she is to educating college students. From 2017 to 2020, she served on the board of directors of the Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative, a nonprofit providing free preschool to children in vulnerable neighborhoods of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She led the development of the non-profit’s 5-year strategic plan, which is projected to quadruple the number of children attending preschool from those neighborhoods.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

• Brand management
• Product innovation
• Global marketing
• Management strategy

EDUCATION

• MBA, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 1995
• B.S., biology, Union College, 1984

OUTSIDE THE COLLEGE

In 2020, Jackie and her husband started a martial arts business — yes, in the middle of the pandemic! This is no isolated whim; she enjoys being on the move. She caught the travel bug in college when she did a term abroad in Florence, and since then she’s travelled to over 25 countries. Since moving from the corporate world to teaching, being on the move means fewer airplanes and more pickleball, yoga and hiking.