5 Minutes with… Nicole Keith
Looking at Nicole Keith’s CV, it’s clear that she’s a multidisciplinarian at heart. The chief product officer at OmnicomHealth Group (OHG) noticed during her time at college studying advertising that YouTube and Facebook were going to disrupt life as it was then. Her hunch proved to be true and the “unrelated” disciplines she pursued suddenly became essential. Equipped with an ability to “define and solve problems”, Nicole found herself on a natural path towards the role of a product analyst/product owner.
At OmnicomHealth Group, Nicole's role is centred around enabling creative teams to do their best work, which she calls her “north star.” While focused on product development, she’s also working to help agencies improve their creative production processes which allows her to utilise her educational foundation in advertising. Systemic in her approach, Nicole is aware that small things working well are key to a structure that engenders further success. That’s why she notes that her proudest achievement to date at OHG is perhaps her smallest - fixing delayed data flow that affected employee onboarding. The result? A resolved issue that was causing widespread dissatisfaction.
Today, LBB speaks to Nicole about her “servant” leadership style, how she became fluent in Japanese, and why she loves solving the problems - no matter how big or small - that really matter to people.
LBB> Tell us a little bit about yourself. What were you like growing up? Did you have any dream career plans?
Nicole> According to my mom, I was quiet, shy, and sweet with a talent for spotting four-leafed clovers. My dad said that I had a low tolerance for silliness and wasn't afraid to speak up if something didn't make sense. I grew up in the family restaurant business and was on the payroll from age 12, never asking my parents for money again. I remember feeling a sense of independence early on and sometimes felt like I was the only adult in the room. As for career aspirations, I considered becoming a veterinarian, a police officer, or an actress.
LBB> Product management is a relatively new career path. How did you first find out about and what drew you to this type of role to begin with?
Nicole> When I was in college for advertising, the social web was just starting to become accessible to the masses via Facebook and YouTube. I anticipated the convergence of skills required for this new media and signed up for electives in computer programming, social statistics, economics, and other “unrelated” disciplines. That approach has served me well with a solid foundation for understanding various disciplines and dependencies—the good kind of generalist.
My career then followed a natural product path from software sales engineering to product analysis, implementation at scale, and now enterprise platform operations. The product mindset comes from reading lots of essential non-fiction and industry publications (Malcolm Gladwell, HBR and Strategyzer are a few faves).
Perhaps most importantly, I have been shadowing my husband’s path as a software engineer since college, and we talk about new ideas and professional challenges all the time, so his insights reflect a realistic appreciation for what development teams need from business to get the best results, truly becoming a bridge for business and technology.
LBB> And what was your career journey prior to the Omnicom Health Group?
Nicole> My first job was supposed to be in software sales for a start-up, but because I understood software, I became more of a sales engineer for custom implementations. I have some great memories of negotiating a client-funded product upgrade and taking over a million-dollar deal that was at risk.
Knowing how to define and solve problems, the transition to product analyst/product owner was natural. At Press Ganey, we had the benefit of agile coaching to support some innovative data analytics products for the time. That created the right conditions for me as product owner to hit a series of significant wins with reimagined approaches to traditional business problems previously thought too lofty a goal, fuelling my confidence to take on bigger challenges.
Suddenly, our family had the opportunity to move to Tokyo, where I learned Japanese and managed to pass an interview in Japanese with a major domestic retailer, UNIQLO, for my first global gig in digital display production. We coordinated with retailing, marketing, talent management, and production teams all over the world. It was a delight to be in the mix of culture, language, and style.
Then at OSF Digital, I took a deep dive into all things e-commerce, distributed architecture, distributed teams, localised content, and agile coaching. These concepts became the norm just in time to ride the online wave through covid with one of my favourite teams ever. In a bittersweet moment shortly after leaving OSF for OmnicomHealth Group, we learned that my last project received the Salesforce Innovation Award for Telecom.
LBB> You’ve been with the Omnicom Health Group as their chief product officer since 2022. What appealed to you about working at the company?
Nicole> Firstly, OHG came recommended and aligns with my values of openness and inclusion. Next, the company has made significant investments in innovation, and joining just as AI applications are becoming more commercially viable is an energising area of exploration. Lastly, although I’m still focused on product development, I’m excited to be working with agencies to improve the creative production process in homage to my degree in advertising.
LBB> Can you tell us a little about what your role entails and what kind of challenges you are helping the Omnicom Health Group to solve?
Nicole> The primary focus is supporting our companies with new products to improve our work and long-term platform optimisation. Specifically, enabling creative teams to do their best work is my north star, and a big challenge for them is maintaining fidelity across multiple versions and environments. We’ve historically seen this follow an expand-and-contract pattern, and I predict we are moving into an alignment cycle with the ever-growing connectivity at Adobe.
Also, balancing standardisation with agility is a fascinating challenge. While one-offs represent quick wins and are easy to spin up and ramp down, they can work against operating as a single company. The aim is to standardise key functions to meet OKRs while also providing guardrails for exploration and divergent thinking.
LBB> What’s your proudest achievement to date while at OHG?
Nicole> Perhaps my proudest achievement is my smallest. There was a delay in data flow impacting employee onboarding. A few managers told me they had already tried to investigate but were told it’s a system limitation and couldn’t be fixed. I tried anyway and pushed until I found the engineer, who offered a low-cost solution that could be implemented right away. It’s those thorns such as unnecessary delay that poke at work satisfaction, so I’m proud to have removed that particular pain across the board.
LBB> The product space appears very analytical - how much creativity does your role require?
Nicole> In general, product requires a high degree of both creative and analytical skills. Previous roles allowed for more creative freedoms with custom development. Because OHG requires a greater level of compliance for our software systems, I’m finding myself in an analytical space more often here.
The creativity emerges for softer skills like building key relationships, strategic partnering, and ideal future vision--all also required for successful enterprise initiatives. Then back to the analytical space, pressure testing that vision as a proof of concept to ensure new workflows are tested and proven before rollout as my commitment to our agencies.
LBB> From your career history, we can see that you’re a multidisciplinarian. Do you think that’s the key to succeeding in a career path like product development / management?
Nicole> Product development is essentially systems design. Understanding differing needs across departments like sales, marketing, technology, customer service and legal certainly sets up for a strong product professional, because keeping considerations for respective stakeholders builds credibility, better systems design, and stronger product outcomes.
For the vertical slice, many product managers stay within an industry to build domain expertise, but I love new challenges and am confident jumping verticals with the help of a strong SME partner. This also helps me keep fresh and continuously learning new types of business.
Distilling it a bit further, perhaps curiosity is the real driver to success, as curiosity leads to discovery which leads to understanding which contributes to achieving product market fit.
LBB> You’re in a senior leadership role - what’s your leadership style and what do you think makes a good leader?
Nicole> I consider myself a servant leader with the goal of creating optimised, self-sufficient teams. The best leaders I know take a facilitative role, allowing the team to manage their own work and supporting with a little grease or glue as needed. This requires a fair amount of discipline to meet team members where they are in terms of existing skill set and required guidance, and is well worth the higher effort.
In this way, I’ve found that teams are generally more comfortable pulling in support from the manager than being pushed to complete tasks, while also requiring less effort from the manager to be effective. It seems like many managers want to control the work to be done their way, but when we realise that no one will ever work exactly the same way as you would--and that’s okay—we can refocus our energy on growth rather than conformity.
Like gardening, we cannot force plants to grow but can create the right conditions for them to flourish.
LBB> What part of your role do you enjoy the most? And if you don’t mind sharing, which part brings you the least joy?
Nicole> I love solving little problems that matter to people. Where are those thorns that need to be removed? How can a new tool make someone’s day-to-day better? Little problems can be more approachable than larger solves and come with similar impacts, though often overlooked by managers seeking the next big idea. Embracing a mindset of continuous improvement, little by little, opens the possibility of opportunity everywhere, while also providing grace that we don’t need to be perfect in order to improve.
On the other hand, I would be delighted not to file an expense report ever again!
LBB> Finally, what do you like to do when you’re not working - how do you rest and recharge?
Nicole> First, I enjoy being outdoors, whether gardening, hiking, sitting by the pool, dining al fresco, snowboarding, or just walking the dog. We also make an effort to take mini-vacations as a family to break up the routine and to create memories each season. Lastly, preparing dinner has become a sort of daily meditation for me as well as a source of creativity by pulling together meals from whatever is on hand. Constraints can be a powerful tool for inspiration!
