Nicola joined the Board of Trustees in July 2025.
After graduating from John Moores University in 1991, Nicola trained and qualified as a Chartered Accountant, joining KPMG in 1996 where she gained experience in both the North West and in London. She was appointed partner in KPMG’s Manchester office in 2008.
During her thirteen years as an audit partner, Nicola worked with a broad range of clients, from public listed companies to large and small privately owned businesses. As part of her role Nicola demonstrated outstanding leadership abilities, strong analytical and problem solving capabilities and a high level of integrity. In addition to her role as audit partner, Nicola was Office Senior Partner for KPMG’s Manchester office for two years from 2017 to 2019 and served as an elected independent member of KPMG’s UK Board and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee for three years between 2014 and 2017.
Through each of these roles Nicola developed her active listening and communication skills and demonstrated her ability to provide effective, strategic and ethical challenge. Having retired from the KPMG partnership in 2021 Nicola continued to work within KPMG’s Risk Management team until May 2025, enhancing her experience of enterprise risk management and reporting, governance, control and compliance frameworks, ethical decision making and policy development.
Throughout her time at KPMG Nicola was an active member of the Manchester business and finance community, holding various roles including member of the Board of the North West Leadership Team, member of the CBI North West Committee and Chair of Pro Manchester. Nicola has always been a passionate advocate for fairness and equity, being an active champion, coach and mentor for both members of her team and other colleagues, partner sponsor for KPMG’s Network of Women and KPMG’s Disability Network in the North West, proud supporter of the Northern Power Women organisation and KPMG representative on the BITC Place Taskforce. Nicola’s personal and professional values closely align with Seashell.
Nicola lives in Lymm with her husband, family and dogs.