Laurie Ashcraft (left) and Liz Nickles
In addition to being the founders of UPDATE:WOMEN™, The Reinvented Woman™ and the Gen Next™ Report, Nickles & Ashcraft are co-authors of a groundbreaking book on marketing to women, and have commented as experts on the Today Show, Oprah, and in media including The Washington Post, Advertising Age, USA Today, The New York Times Magazine and American Demographics. Nickles & Ashcraft clients have included Sears, AT&T, The Girl Scouts of America, Save the Children, Hachette, Hearst, Meredith, Sears, Showtime, Time-Warner, Beech-Nut, Purina Nestle, Sanofi- Aventis and MGM.
Liz Nickles is a nationally-recognized expert in advertising, strategic marketing and strategic branding and expansion. She has been a senior branding and creative executive at major advertising agencies and corporations including FTI Consulting; JP Morgan; Credit Suisse; D’Arcy, Masius Benton & Bowles; Ketchum Advertising; J. Walter Thompson; Mattel; and Bank of America. The author of 11 books, she has been named one of Glamour Magazine's top women of the year and decade; Chicago Advertising Woman of the Year; and the United States Council of Women’s Outstanding Woman in Business. She has received advertising industry honors for creativity including the Addie, Clio and Effie, Advertising Age Top 100 Commercials, and the Clara Barton Award for outstanding Red Cross public service advertising.
Ms. Nickles has a B.S. from Northwestern University and an M.A. from DePaul University. She has been a guest lecturer at the UCLA Graduate School of Business.
Laurie Ashcraft has worked with clients nationwide in designing, conducting and analyzing market research studies. She founded and headed the Chicago office of Custom Research Inc. for ten years as Senior Vice President. She has held marketing research management positions at companies including Minnetonka and S.C. Johnson Wax.
Ms. Ashcraft has served as Vice Chairman of the Research Industry Coalition and is past Vice President of the National American Marketing Association, where she served on the board of directors and chaired AMA’s Marketing Research Division Council. She has also been appointed by the Director of the U.S. Census to a six-year term on the Census Advisory Committee.