Executive Director
Emily Nicholson
Meet our Executive Director
Emily Nicholson is a native of Northeastern NC and was raised by two tireless community advocates. She graduated as Valedictorian from the Political Science department at NC State University and obtained a graduate degree from East Carolina University.
Emily previously served as the Assistant Director for the Northeastern Workforce Development Board where she helped enhance the skills and preparedness of the emerging and existing labor pool in a 10-county region to meet the immediate and future demands of employers of the region.
As a former high school and community college educator and mom of three young daughters, Emily understands the important intersections between education and workforce development and is passionate about applying an equity lens towards the Collaborative’s efforts.
Executive Director's Leadership
The Executive Director works with the Executive Steering Committee Chair to maintain membership engagement, communication, and implementation of strategic objectives. Tasks include:
- Work with the Leadership Team to set the direction for the P20 Council’s work.
- Regularly convene the Council to advance strategic directions, identify priorities, establish metrics, and inform members of progress and accomplishments.
- Assemble cross-sector leaders to support ideas for innovation and foster collaboration.
- Support Council members in aligning their institutions’ work with that of myFutureNC.
- Maintain ongoing communication with the cross-sector partners to ensure buy-in, commitment, and successful priorities.
- Establish and implement a plan that includes metrics that will be evaluated and measured for success.
- Establish awareness of the Council’s work to inspire deep commitment to the actions that are required to improve educational attainment across the Land of Sky region.
- Manage the Council’s public relations and marketing campaigns.
- Catalyze and support local initiatives: Identifying, mapping, and supporting partners who are leading existing and emerging initiatives, as well as sharing effective practices, lessons learned, and recommendations with myFutureNC.
- Establish and leverage funding relationships at the local level that are supportive of cross-sector attainment goals and high-impact strategies identified by the Council.
- Research avenues and/or funding sources for the future sustainability of the Council.
- Conduct research and data analysis to support policy and program changes.
- Analyze (a) high-demand, high-wage jobs that are unfilled in the Land of Sky area, (b) credentials students will need to be qualified for those jobs, and (c) articulation agreements/academic pathways that could be created in the interest of training students for unfilled jobs.
- Maintain and utilize a working knowledge of significant developments and trends related to educational attainment aligned to employers’ needs.
- Serve as an effective spokesperson. Represent the organization well to its stakeholders.
- Establish working relationships with organizations and individuals in the field that align educational attainment to gainful employment.
- Establish working relationships with diverse community organizations that align educational attainment to gainful employment.
- Establish procedures to actively engage communities throughout the Land of Sky Region.
- Establish procedures to actively engage employers throughout the Land of Sky Region.
