Nicole founded McKenna BDF to reimagine how career and professional support, developmental coaching, mentoring and facilitation is designed and delivered. Her approach is informed by a desire to provide a bespoke solution that interrogates what’s possible and responds to clients’ unique strengths, values, circumstances and aspirations.

Nicole brings her lived experience working at a senior level in and for elite organisations in Australia, the US and China to the table, as well as her unique brand of wisdom that informs who she is, what she stands for and how she supports her clients.

Nicole knows what it’s like to navigate complex problems, to operate in fast-paced and intellectually rigorous environments and to juggle multiple demands from diverse stakeholders. She also understands that the tension is real in these high performing environments where the expectations and the stakes are high.

Nicole started her professional career as a lawyer, graduating fifth in her class at Monash University Law School, where she completed a combined Bachelor of Laws (Honours)/Bachelor of Arts degree. She is also an alumna of the Editorial Committee of the Monash University Law Review and the Managing Human Capital Executive Education Program at Harvard Business School.

Nicole has completed post graduate study with the Institute of Coaching and Consulting Psychology, an independent body founded by the late Dr Anthony Grant and Dr Michael Cavanagh of the Coaching Psychology Unit at the University of Sydney, and has achieved both the Advanced Certificate in Executive Coaching and Graduate Certificate in Executive Coaching. She has also completed Coach Accreditation Training at the Institute of Executive Coaching & Leadership in Sydney and Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science through the University of Pennsylvania. She is a Coach Member of the International Coach Federation and a Professional Member of the Career Development Association of Australia.

Nicole’s approach to developmental coaching and professional support is unique, and characterised by an “engagement” model, which she believes is better suited to supporting senior people with complex needs and circumstances who require developmental coaching and professional support grounded in nuance and flexibility. Her clients include partners, managing directors and senior academics and professionals from diverse organisations and institutions operating in the law, finance, investment banking, management consulting, health services, astrophysics, and higher education, as well as elite sport, film, media and the performing arts.

Nicole’s breadth of experience partnering with organisations and their people across a spectrum of diverse careers over almost three decades is enormous, and her clients benefit from the different lenses and perspectives she brings to the table to support their unique circumstances and career journeys.