Nicole Verkindt is passionate about leveraging the talents of entrepreneurs. The founder of OMX (Offset Market Exchange) and a Dragon on CBC’s Next Gen Den, she believes in the role of entrepreneurs to grow the economy and help solve global issues. Speaking to the importance of disruptive thinking, technology, innovation, and women’s roles in business, Nicole stresses to audiences that the key to success lies in the ability to ignore being told “no” over and over again.
Nicole launched OMX in 2012, when she was only 27 years old. The online platform is the only one in the world to manage obligations government contractors have to invest in local economies, a policy called “offsets”. The platform is a powerful online marketplace with users from the world’s top defence, aerospace, shipbuilding sectors, and tens of thousands of local suppliers around the world, and also generates data analytics to help governments understand economic impacts of procurement decisions.
Prior to founding OMX, Nicole launched Tiburon (the Spanish word for “shark”) in 2008, an offshore manufacturing business in the Dominican Republic, which sold shelter components to government contractors during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It was also during this time that Haiti experienced their devastating earthquake. Nicole reacted by founding the non-profit organization GlassFrog, which provided aid to the torn nation. Nicole later integrated Tiburon into a family business, and became President and CEO of GMA. In 2011, she led the sale of both Tiburon and GMA to a Private Equity Firm.
Nicole graduated from the Richard Ivey School of Business with a specialization in International Political Science and Entrepreneurship. Upon graduation, she worked for Big Media Group out of Belgium, and was stationed on international projects consulting with governments and international industry looking to target foreign investment. This was her bridge between international politics and entrepreneurship.
Nicole received a political appointment to the Board of the Canadian Crown Corporation, CCC (Canadian Commercial Corporation), which is the sister organization to BDC and EDC. The corporation does government-to-government contracting on behalf of Canadian businesses to foreign governments. She is also on the Board of the Peter Munk School of Global Affairs MGA Program Board. Additionally, she is the official technology columnist for Vanguard magazine, a magazine with a readership of over one million.
Nicole is an active member of the CSCA (Canadian Space Commerce Association), CADSI (Canadian Aerospace, Defence, Security Industry Association), Aerospace Industries Association Canada (AIAC) and Global Offset and Countertrade Association (GOCA). In 2017, Nicole was named “Canada’s 2017 Woman Entrepreneur of the Year” by StartUp Canada.