Nancy Dawes

Idea generator, Investor, Technologist, World traveler

Nancy is a Serial Innovator with roots in the CPG industry. Through her holistic programs, she led major, breakthrough changes in the food (Pringles) and beauty (Olay) industries and was the 1st female engineer recognized as Vic Mills Society (VMS) member at Procter and Gamble. Election to VMS is a recognition for the select few (~15 of 1600 R&D employees) who've made significant contributions to growing or developing company businesses. As a budding P&G innovator, Nancy reinvented, reframed and tripled the Pringles brand by innovating and defining a new "crisps sub-category (Pringles changed the game as a "crisp"). This established Pringles as the only US top-ten snack business not owned by Frito-Lay. On Olay, she grew a billion-dollar business by reframing the beauty aisle in mass retail and filling it with multiple new-to-the-world products (Olay Total Effects, Regenerist, Definity, ProX). Importantly these innovation reinforced her creation of a "masstige" sub-category (mass + prestige) and established anti-aging as an industry-wide innovation vector. As a Serial Innovator, Nancy parallel-paths multiple lines of innovation practice. She leads consumer discovery research that uncovers consumer insights and sensory cues that she integrates with technologies to guide a holistic product design program. This enables business teams to reframe industry categories founded on new products and new market claims that excite consumers and in tern, enable retailers to drive new markets at scale. Nancy is a sought-after speaker and trainer to help companies develop future Serial Innovators. Serial Innovators are those unique and rate individuals who are anonymously embedded in companies, but disproportionately drive a company's financial value through consistent creativity in identifying and solving the most important problems. She partnered with Bruce Vojak, co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovation in Mature Firms (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2012) to create two well-rated webinars in 2020 for The Conference Board, with a 3rd scheduled for 2021. Bruce and Nancy were invited to present "Serial Innovators: A 'People View' of Innovation in a Connected World" at the 2021 PDMA conference. A life-long Girl Scout, Nancy took-to-heart her Girl Scout leader's challenge to adopt volunteerism as a significant life-long commitment. She successfully integrated four individual Councils into Girl Scouts of Western OH (2008) and then served as Board Chair of one of the 10-largest councils in the US. She currently co-chairs the multi-million dollar GSWO Camp Property Program Redesign and is an elected National Council Delegate. Nancy demonstrates her commitment to STEM leadership as a 2019 founding member of BEWEL (Buckeye Engineering Women in Executive Leadership) and 20+ years serving External Advisory Boards for the Ohio State College of Engineering. Nancy holds six granted patents, has a published book chapter and several technical articles. She is recognized as a Distinguished Alumna by the OSU College of Engineering (2012) and the Texnikoi Outstanding Alumna Award (1998) as well as for her extensive volunteer work with Girl Scouts (Thanks Badge 1 and II, Honor Keeper 100 Women Award). She is a 2018 Cincinnati Women of Distinction Honoree. .

learning new things; travelling and exploring; meeting new people; encouraging others to grow and learn; encouraging young women to enter technical/scientific fields

beauty recognition, growth, patterns of growth,, Innovation, Product Design & Development, strategic thinker