Episode Details

Nicole Johnston, TEDx & Leadership Speaker | Best-Selling Author | Executive & Leadership Coach. She is dedicated to helping corporate women overcome workplace obstacles, own their value, and step into their full authority. As the founder of innatePOWER®, she leverages over three decades of high-level corporate experience to cultivate “Mental Fitness” and authentic leadership in individuals and organizations worldwide.

Executive Background

Prior to launching her coaching practice in January 2023, Nicole built a distinguished 30-year career as a global senior Sales and Marketing executive within Fortune 50 and FMCG/CPG giants. She has successfully led multi-functional teams and managed business portfolios worth up to $1.5 billion. Her notable corporate leadership roles include:

* Vice President of Sales, Food Division at Newell Brands

* Head of Pet Healthcare at Boehringer Ingelheim

* Vice President of Sales Strategy & Head of Ecommerce (Latin America) at Kimberly-Clark

* General Manager of Club & Dollar Channels at The Hershey Company

Coaching & Speaking Philosophy

Driven by a pivotal moment that shifted her focus from building billion-dollar business structures to developing people, Nicole founded innatePOWER™. Her work addresses the critical, often unwritten dynamics of corporate environments—such as navigating power literacy, overcoming the exhaustion of invisible labor, and transitioning from merely “performing” leadership to truly embodying it.

She is a certified Organizational Development Coach through Symbiosis Coaching and holds credentials in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). As an inspirational speaker, she frequently delivers keynotes, corporate training, masterclasses, and workshops aimed at challenging organizations to build a better, more inclusive future.

Authorship & Education

Nicole is the author of the best-selling book, Taboo Topics: Things Women Should Talk About, But Don’t (released May 2025), which provides concrete language and tools for women navigating complex career advancement barriers.

A native of Iowa, she holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in International Business, French, and Spanish from The University of Iowa Tippie College of Business, where she also serves on the board. Additionally, she is an alumna of the Executive Leadership Institute at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Taboo Topics: Things Women Should Talk About, But Don’t

The book serves as a candid guide and professional manifesto specifically tailored for career-minded, executive-track, and director-level women. Johnston argues that women often experience professional stalls, friction, or burnout not because of a lack of capability or confidence, but due to hidden cultural, structural, and unwritten rules in the corporate world that are rarely addressed in traditional leadership manuals.

Drawing on her 30+ years of global corporate experience leading billion-dollar business portfolios (including senior roles at companies like Procter & Gamble and Hershey Foods), she brings these silent challenges into the open, offering women practical strategies to advance with clarity.

Key Themes & Topics Covered in her Book

· The Hidden Rules of Executive Presence: Unpacking the unspoken and often double standards by which women are evaluated differently than men in leadership spaces, and how to navigate them authentically.

· The Emotional Labor Tax: Managing the quiet pressure often placed on women to handle office dynamics, minimize conflicts, or take on non-promotable “office housework” tasks that drain strategic focus.

· The Perfectionism & Over-delivery Trap: Exploring w