ABOUT

Nicola Jones-Crossley is currently a Senior Business Development Manager at Futurpreneur Canada, working with start-up entrepreneurs to support them in the initial stages of their business. She connects with mentors across sectors and collaborates with community partners to build a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem in British Columbia and across Canada.

In addition to her role at Futurpreneur, Nicola was the Executive Director for a national non-profit organisation Women in Tech World. During her year-long tenure, Nicola executed and delivered a project in collaboration with the Government of Canada, IBM, and the University of Ottawa that built a learning program to support men to become stronger gender equity allies in tech.

Prior to her work in Canada, Nicola was living and working in Thailand for 5 years. While based in Bangkok, Nicola was the Founding Director of AKIN ASIA - a community organisation that promotes and celebrates female leadership. In this role Nicola led a small team coordinating a global network and facilitating women-led panel discussions, networking events and professional development workshops. 

Notably, Nicola led the initiative to partner with UNESCO Asia Pacific on a local project Women Make The News - Thailand. Part of a global campaign to feature more female voices in the news, Women Make The News - Thailand is an online database of Thai female experts created as a tool for journalists to quickly and easily find sources for their reports. As a partner, AKIN ASIA assisted UNESCO with the development, design and implementation of the campaign along with promoting and marketing the database for wider influence.

In addition to her work in Thailand, Nicola has served as Guest Lecturer at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, Bangladesh where she designed and facilitated professional development curriculum for a diverse range of students. With students from 13 different countries represented, the learning had great impact.

Nicola also has experience working in Japan. Social change communications agency Love Frankie engaged Nicola to design and deliver a women’s leadership and economic empowerment summit for Google in Tokyo. Together with the team, Nicola convened 20 influencers from across Asia Pacific to work together to advance gender equity.

As a Master Trainer from the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM), Nicola continues to facilitate and deliver trainings in leadership, communication for impact and negotiation skills. She has worked with teams across various industries throughout Southeast Asia to develop and leverage professional skill sets for increased impact.

She has also worked extensively with AccorHotels to facilitate leadership and communication training for the brand's leading female executives across Southeast Asia. Held in Bangkok, the training focussed on building confidence, managing conflict and communicating effectively.

Prior to founding AKIN ASIA and working across Southeast Asia, Nicola worked in non-profit management in Australia, specifically focussing on youth work. She worked as part of a team that ran recreation activities, certified alternative education programs and outreach assistance initiatives for young people in Sydney’s inner suburbs.

In addition to the her qualifications from ILM, Nicola holds a Diploma of Youth Work from TAFE Institute of Western Sydney and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame Australia.