About Nicole
Nicole (Hayward) Zheng is a marketing leader and business operator specializing in SaaS and deep tech. Passionate about AI, Nicole is currently an investor/advisor for Casie.ai and member of the AI Accelerator Institute. She is open to fractional leadership and advisory roles for AI-driven companies.
Nicole is a 5x CMO for SaaS companies with B2B, B2C and B2B2C models. Nicole held the position of Chief Marketing Officer at Pontera, a fintech company helping people retire better by enabling financial advisors to professionally manage their 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and more.
Prior to Pontera, she served as cofounder and President of Minim (NASDAQ: MINM), an intelligent networking software and device company with an exclusive license to the Motorola brand. While at Minim, Zheng oversaw the marketing, engineering, and product departments. She helped lead the Company from $0 to $55 million in net annual revenue through a multi-faceted go-to-market strategy, merger, rebrand, Nasdaq uplist, and public offering. Prior to Minim, Zheng was Chief Marketing Officer at cloud software companies Antidote Technologies and OnSIP (ACQ: Intrado). Passionate about building go-to-market strategies for innovative startups, Zheng serves as Advising CMO to deep tech startup Aliro Quantum.
A member of the Forbes Council, Zheng has been recognized by the Stevie Business Awards for Women in Business Worldwide as a Female Executive of the Year (2022) and Most Innovative Woman (2022); by Parks Associates as a Top Leader in Technology (2022); as well as by Entrepreneur as a Top Female Founder in the United States (2020). She was a founding board member of Alliance of Channel Women, a nonprofit that supports women in channel business development for the telecom and broadband sector.
Zheng holds a B.S. in Materials Science Engineering and a B.S. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as business and finance certifications from The Wharton School Online. She resides in New York City with her husband and two rescue dogs, Mabel and Winifred.
“Brand neglect is a silent killer, inflating customer acquisition costs, decreasing customer retention, and obliterating customer referrals. In B2B, brand recognition is just as important. You may have heard the phrase, ‘Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.’ People have been saying it for thirty years.”
Open to advisory and fractional leadership
Nicole lives and works in New York City. She is open to advisory, coaching, interviews, and collaborations– especially in startup founding, leadership development, DEI, financial literacy, and work-life wellness.
Contact for more info.