Nicole’s bio
Nicole Hess Kempton serves as a Senior Consultant with CMAC. Nicole’s areas of specialization include strategic planning, design thinking, board engagement, engagement of under-leveraged groups, and alignment between organizational goals and operations. Nicole is a passionate evangelist for lifelong learning and enjoys “geeking out” on design thinking techniques and innovation in the higher education sector.
Prior to joining CMAC, Nicole held a variety of roles in alumni engagement and development at Duke University, managing strategic planning efforts, alumni/student engagement programs, regional alumni communities, graduate and professional school engagement, and more. She served as Chief of Staff for the alumni engagement and development department and was the staff lead on a Board of Trustees task force examining the future of global alumni engagement at Duke.
Prior to her work at Duke, Nicole worked in a variety of non-profit and commercial roles globally and has been an active volunteer in Duke alumni clubs all over the world, including Beijing, Hong Kong, London, Washington, DC, and Seoul. She has also served on several boards and is passionate about mission-driven causes. Nicole holds an undergraduate degree from Duke University, and an MPhil in Comparative Literature from the University of Hong Kong, where she was a Fulbright Scholar. Recently, Nicole completed a MicroMasters in Design Thinking at Rochester University of Technology (RIT) and a certificate in Strategic Innovation at the University of Oxford.
Born in Philadelphia and raised on a farm outside Greensboro, North Carolina, Nicole currently resides in the United Kingdom with her husband, two kids, and two rescue dogs. When she’s not dreaming up new alumni engagement strategies, you can find her traveling, on a hiking trail, or with her nose in a great book.
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