Maggie Nichols is CEO of
Eureka! Ranch

Learn more about
Maggie Nichols

1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
Building Bridges: Driving Your Eureka!
Maggie Nichols, CEO, Eureka! Ranch, Cincinnati, OH

We can't take you all to the Eureka! Ranch, so we're bringing Eureka! Ranch to you! With over 20 years of experience inventing and testing new products, services, and systems, Maggie Nichols has a wealth of practical knowledge and hard data that will motivate you to think more creatively and innovatively about the growth of your business. 

Eureka! Ranch! was founded more than 35 years ago by Doug Hall. Doug was at Proctor & Gamble and got a record number of innovations shipped in a short period of time with a tiny staff and budget (9 products in 12 months with a team of 3). He did this by using a systems approach because of his knowledge of the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the inspiration for Lean, Total Quality and Six Sigma. Doug left P&G and founded Eureka! Ranch and started helping large companies like Nike, American Express, and Disney create big, disruptive ideas, which it continues to do today. In fact, their client list reads like a Who's Who of worldwide businesses.

Maggie Nichols joined the Eureka! Ranch in 1999 after graduating from Miami University’s Farmer School of Business. After reading an article about the Ranch during an Entrepreneurship class, she decided that the Eureka! Ranch was the place where she was going to work. Months and dozens of pestering visits later, Founder, Doug Hall, finally acquiesced and Maggie’s been part of the ranch ever since.

She started as an Apprentice Inventor working on innovation projects alongside Doug Hall and the team. After a short stint working on internet strategy at a large corporate bank, she moved to Oxford, England where she supported Eureka!‘s European efforts. In 2005, she returned to the US as Vice President of R&D while also, continuing to oversee innovation projects. During those years she helped to pioneer the development of Innovation Engineering.

In 2009 Maggie was named President & Chief Operating Officer – not only leading the team at Eureka! Ranch and the Innovation Engineering Institute, but helping C-Level Executives around the world guide their employees and teams through innovation. She has served as an innovation coach and educator to some of the world’s largest companies and non-profits including American Express, Humana, March of Dimes, and P&G. In Summer, 2018 Maggie was named CEO & President of Eureka! Ranch.

Maggie is a self-reported introvert, but when it comes to Innovation Education and Leadership you’ll find her passion makes her talk fast, furiously, and incessantly providing incredible energy to any event. She is a Miami University (that is Ohio) graduate who is married to her college sweetheart, Brian. They live in Cincinnati, Ohio with their two kids.

3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Building Bridges: Innovation 101 Lab
Maggie Nichols & the Eureka! Ranch Team

In followup to Maggie's session, she and the Eureka! Ranch Team will teach you the simple skills needed to be successful with innovation. You will learn ideation skills to generate creative ideas that solve real problems, learn to communicate clearly ideas and solutions in a persuasive manner 5X more powerful, and how to test ideas through simple Fail Fast Fail Cheap cycles of learning. Stop struggling with where to start and how to approach innovation. These just-in-time tips will set you in motion to unlock your innovation potential through hands-on exercises and group activities that will help you put these skills to work to solve real problems. 

Don't miss this Innovation Lab designed to unleash your innovation potential!