Chris W. Nickerson Email & Phone Number

Lincolnville, Me, Us

Mid-Coastal Maine

Whale's Tooth Ventures, LLC is an HR Advisory & Small Business Investment Co., $4.5M in RevenueFOUNDER & OWNER- Board Director and Consultant for the Belfast Regional Chamber of Commerce that enables over 430 businesses. Focus areas: leadership, coaching, strategy & KPI mapping, talent & performance management, governance, succession planning, recruiting, total rewards and change management. - Acquired and improved ongoing operation of an oceanfront pub & restaurant through a phased three-year roadmap that focused on strategy, leadership, service excellence culture, customer segmentation and marketing, enabling technology, supply chain, talent management, and operations with a specific focus on eliminating failure modes to maximize business continuity. - Improved service experience and efficiency through a customer service AI chatbot powered by a Large Language Model (LLM) using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to supplement the LLM with real-time business information, along with an interface for reservations. Potentially the first restaurant in Maine to utilize AI for customers. - Business Results: delivered above industry-benchmark profit of 18.5% and earned coveted Open Table Diners’ Choice Award for Maine and New England over the last three years (2022-2024). - Implemented innovative talent attraction & retention strategy, and competitive advantage, by acquiring and transforming large 4-acre B&B property into housing for working professionals.

Greater New York City Area

BlueVoyant is a global cybersecurity company that defends businesses and infrastructure. CHRO - Executive Committee member responsible for all culture and global people management capabilities, policies and technologies spanning talent & performance management, succession planning, learning, diversity, recruiting, compensation, benefits, M&A and HR operations. - Improved employee engagement by 17% and reduced voluntary attrition by 35%, through a focus on leadership behavior, employee engagement, rigorous recruiting and onboarding practices.- Designed and implemented new SOC2-compliant performance and talent management process to power growth, including corporate scorecard, goal setting, 360-degree development and link to pay.- Designed eight-part learning curriculum to engage the hearts and minds of employees globally. Program included a mentoring program to promote global inclusion. - Designed and chaired global 22-member Coronavirus task force to ensure the company survived the pandemic. Maintained attrition to just 3.4% while enhancing employee engagement metrics.

Attleboro, Ma

Commercial restaurant design, construction, distribution market leader, $3B revenue, 3K employees. SVP & CHRO- Executive Committee member responsible for enterprise-wide Human Resources spanning talent and performance management, L&D, recruiting, compensation & benefits, HR technology and operations. - Conducted Board-sponsored firm-wide diagnostic, gained approval for HR Roadmap by showing how disciplined talent management drives EBITDA. - Implemented first yearly Talent & Performance Management cycle and Career & Comp Framework.- Defined blueprint for TriMark University, a blended learning destination for culture and business with a heightened focus on senior member knowledge transfer and younger talent mentoring. - Gained 20% efficiency gain and improved customer satisfaction through 3 divisional roll-up.

New Jersey

Head of Global Learning (2014-2016) Talent Management executive accountable for the design and execution of global learning. - Reimagined, built and led 85-member globally-dispersed learning organization, placing the learner at the center of their experience through personalized access and utilization of highly curated and blended content, including through managed service providers. Scope: leadership, job and role design, performance consulting, design & development, LMS/LCMS, social/mobile learning, measurement, and new hire, diverse onboarding. - Drove recurring savings of $80M per year that included a shift to externally-sourced instructional design and content. Received 2016 Brandon Hall Gold Medal Award for Best Learning Team.

New Jersey

HR Executive supporting Presidents for $30B global therapeutic businesses.- Led set-up and management of newly created Customer-Centricity division for Merck’s ‘Top 50’ global customers; provided differentiated relationship management, products and services.- Implemented key elements of Merck’s Career and Compensation Framework (CCF), including job and position titles, professional career paths and compensation guidelines. - HR Lead to create Merck’s Global Value Chain: Overlaid therapeutic areas across Global R&D, Manufacturing and Commercial. Established Sales & Mktg. in Brazil, Singapore, Switzerland, US.

New Jersey

HR Executive supporting SVP, WW Drug Development, the 7,500-employee value engine of Merck. - Provided SVP & Senior Team with leadership coaching, talent & performance management, executive recruiting and compensation management. - Successfully led M&A Integration of Merck & Schering-Plough’s global R&D 15K employees globally. Scope: org design, placements, works councils, change mgmt., retention, value realization.

New York, New York

Global High Technology Professional Services Company with $80B in sales, 400K employees. Principal Management Consultant (1998-2006)Member of Talent Management Leadership Team responsible for succession planning and executive talent and organization effectiveness processes for top 50 leaders and critical talent pipeline roles. - Completed Chairman's Blue Book of critical Leaders and Board succession planning mitigation plans including experiential, coaching and formal training plans, tactics and dashboard monitoring. - Co-architect of IBM’s Collaborate for Growth method and thought capital to drive collaboration between business units & geographies to drive market share. Led 80 team members across Software & Americas. Led large and diverse strategy through implementation of client relationship building & management engagements focused on human capital, organizational leadership and transformation efforts across multiple industries. - Talent Management: Designed and delivered recruitment & selection capabilities, including assessment and supplier partnerships for 165 specific customer-facing roles; drove 15% savings and quality of hire. - Leadership and Customer-Centric Change: Drove revenue and income improvements of large retail company by focusing on leader standards. Conducted 360-based coaching to CEO, 1,500 leaders. - Values Integration: Co-led HR efforts to merge cultures of two large professional services firms globally, starting with data analytics & insights generation. - Customer Management: Led 24-month Service Vision of the Future effort spanning storytelling and operational improvements across thirty-one Customer Care Centers to grow top line revenue through improved customer service. Projected 5-year NPV of $105M.

Masters, Business Administration And Management, General

Post-Graduate Coursework, Organizational Leadership

B.S., Finance, Banking, Economics