With over 25 years of experience scaling enterprise technology organizations, Nicole joins Lightspeed’s Growth Private Equity team as an Operating Partner. A seasoned operator, she’s led teams across public enterprise, private equity, and nonprofit, including serving as COO at Workforce Software, where she helped drive its acquisition by ADP in 2024. 

Nicole’s leadership spans healthcare, enterprise SaaS, and cloud infrastructure. She’s led product management, cloud services, and professional services, and even spent time in nonprofit film with Sundance. She sees herself as a translator: someone who turns the ephemeral language of engineering into tangible business outcomes.

Nicole first connected with Lightspeed through Isaac Kim, now a Partner on the Private Equity Growth team. His thoughtful, values-driven approach left a lasting impression during their time working together. “I would have been honored to work with him anywhere,” she says. “Doing it at Lightspeed, in the context of private equity, makes it all the more meaningful.”

For founders and teams, Nicole brings a rare blend of strategic acumen, deep empathy, and technical rigor. She’s most energized when helping others succeed and doesn’t let ego stand in the way of the best answer: “There’s almost always a path to be found, you just have to stay with the questions longer than you might feel comfortable.”

Nicole’s fascination with technology began early in Silicon Valley, surrounded by tinkerers, garage inventors, and emerging tools. Her father, a teenage immigrant who fled East Germany and rebuilt a dental practice from scratch, instilled in her a deep respect for hard work, technical precision, and resilience.

Based in Salt Lake City, Nicole recharges by hiking the Wasatch Range with her family or roasting single-origin coffee on her back porch, a meditative hobby. She reads historical and science fiction voraciously, always searching for signals in the noise. She has served on the board of a STEM-focused nonprofit and mentors local student athletes, continuing her commitment to building pathways for future leaders.