I believe we need more potent, brilliant, lit up leaders like you running our communities, our companies, and our world.

Niko brings nearly 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, change agent, and performance coach. She assists individuals and teams to 1) achieve massive impact and substantially increased revenue AND 2) design lives, cultures, and businesses led by a values, clear vision, and metrics.

She has first hand experience starting and growing companies. She grew her first venture, Girls For A Change, from her kitchen table to serve 20,000 girls globally. She raised millions in growth capital from venture capital investors and high visibility national corporate partners including Sephora Inc, Bank of America, Intel, Yahoo, Google, and American Express.

Niko’s been acknowledged for her social change work by The Silicon Valley Business Journal as a “40 Under 40” social innovator, Fast Company magazine’s Social Capitalist Award, NPR’s Community Hero Award and has been featured in Newsweek, The Washington Post, and The San Jose Mercury News. Niko received her BA from Tufts University and attended Harvard Business School’s Executive Management Program. She has a TEDx watched by over 1 million, is a diplomatic speaker for the US State Department and was a Senior Advisor at the Broad Foundation, coaching superintendents on leading public education reform.

Niko has worked with clients across sectors including corporate (Zoom, Pagerduty, Facebook, J.Crew, Twilio, Honeybook, Amazon Web Services), public (U.S. Department of State, UC Berkeley, Brown University, City of Santa Ana), and non-profit (The Broad Center for School Management, The Aspen Inst., Idea Public Schools, Net Impact, Girl Scouts, Idealist.org, Global Migration System for Integration, Young Women Social Entrepreneurs).

She lives in Southern California with her husband and son. When she isn’t working with brilliant leaders, she surfs, runs, rides, dances and meditates to the loudest music with the best beat she can get her hands on.

Awards

  • Fellow, Draper Richards Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship

  • Silicon Valley Business Journal, “40 Under 40” Award

  • Fast Company Social Capitalist Award (Honorable Mention)

  • U.S. State Department, Diplomatic Speaker

  • National Public Radio, Community Hero Award

  • Harvard Business School Scholarship Awardee, Executive Non-Profit Management Program

Select Speaking Engagements

  • TedX, Orange County, CA, Speaker, “Meet Yourself: A Users Guide to Building Self-Esteem.”

  • California Assoc. of Private Post-Secondary Schools Conference, San Diego, CA, Speaker, “Empowering Admissions.”

  • Stanford Univ. Social Entrepreneurship Day, Palo Alto, CA, Speaker, “The Cost/Benefit of Corporate Partnerships.”

  • Fundraising Day, San Francisco, CA, Workshop Leader, “Building Strategic Partnerships with Corporations.”

  • Haas School of Business, Univ. of California Berkeley, Annual Net Impact Conference, Berkeley, CA, Panel Presenter

Community Involvement

  • Contributor: Brown University & National Institute of Health, Perinatal Abuse Prevention Program

  • Guest Lecturer on Social Entrepreneurship: Stanford, Haas School of Business, Santa Clara University and San Jose State

  • Business Plan Competition Judge: Judge for business plan competitions at Haas School of Business and Stanford University

  • Young Women Social Entrepreneurs: Co-Founder

  • Workforce Investment Board: Former Member, Board of Directors

  • High School Inc.: Business Partner and High School Facilitator

  • Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership: Fellow

Education

  • Harvard Business School, Non-Profit Management Executive Education, 2007

  • Tufts University, Bachelor of Arts, 1997