Ultimate Beauty

Ultimate Beauty is a fast-growing, people-first, fully remote organization. Our purpose is to enable our team members to live their best life, while doing this "business thing" really really well.

As Chief People Officer, I'm responsible for developing a world-class culture as we 10x our business. This means I get to play with radical, leading-edge concepts such as Remote Work, Unique Ability, EOS, and Best life Coaching.

The bigger goal is to first prove we can have a couple hunded people live their best lives, while delivering outsized results.. -> And then share our learnings to inspire a million people to live better lives through better work.

Chief People Officer

Running Remote

Community Member

The Future is Remote

Ex-management consultant/entrepreneur/leader → turned Remote Evangelist. On a mission to inspire, educate & coach individuals, teams & organizations to succeed in a remote world.

20-30 minute conversations with the leaders, thinkers, and doers of Remote Work. 

Highlighted episodes
🎙 Humanizing Remote w/ Chase Warrington, Head of Remote @ Doist (https://spoti.fi/3U7N8b7)
🎙 The Benefits of Remote Work w/ Tony Jamous, Founder @ Oyster (https://spoti.fi/3hd1TL7)
🎙 Asynchronous Work w/ Nicolas Cava, Engineering Manager @ Zendesk (https://spoti.fi/3h36QWE)

Podcast Host / Remote Evangelist

Beleco

70% of companies are already hybrid (intentional or not). However most companies do not know how to realize the benefits (up to 50% reduced cost, while increasing productivity and engagement)

Beleco helps companies with the transition to Hybrid, through subscription based furniture for Offices and Home Offices. 

As Head of Hybrid I lead our internal Hybrid Transformation, and act as a thought leader with the wider community. 

As VP of Sales, I am  building a World Class Sales Organisation, to help our customers with their Hybrid Transformation, and create great workplaces for their employees - wherever they are.

Head of Hybrid / VP of Sales

NetSuite

Sales Manager, Nordic Startup & Scale-up segment. 
Led the turnaround of an underperfoming sales team of 11 remote account executives.

Sales Manager, Nordics

Google

Leading Google's engagement with startups across Northern Europe (Nordics & Benelux) 
- Grew function by >120% to 42M ARR
- Managed Google's portfolio of top 10 Scaleups to help drive hypergrowth (~200% YoY)
- Engaged with VCs and the Startup Ecosystem to support top 100 startups at scale

🚀 Head of Startups, Northern Europe

- Account Executive for Spotify, one of Google Cloud's top 3 customers globally (>300M ARR)
- Grew product adoption -> account revenue by 57%
- Led team of 16 cross-functional Googlers (Stockholm, New York, Dublin)

Account Executive, Top Account, Google Cloud

Business developer responsible for larger technology partners in Northern Europe and FRITES. Worked with two of Sweden's most exciting startups, helping them develop world class ad-tech products. 

Responsible for progressing and closing the largest deal in Channel Sales EMEA history.

Strategic Partner Developer, Channel Sales

- Helped Secure 50M SEK investment form Norrsken Foundation
- Hired and managed product and tech team
- Responsible for product strategy and development

Head of Product

Kugghuset AB

- Responsible for Future Labs (Product development hub)
- Managed design and development of a sales competition tool for Bambora
- Implemented internal sales pipeline & dashboards
- Trained colleagues in relationship driven sales

Product Developer

Seed Nordic

Startup Accelerator / Startup Factory

- Invested in 3 startups and led them through a 4 month program (1 exit) 
- Delivered startup-as-a-service innovation projects (6 weeks from idea to first paying customer)

Sample projects:
- Bambora Growth Capital
- Butlr
- Pimobo
- Frameworks
- NYFoodBox
- GetSocial

CEO / Product Developer

Serendipity

Serendipity Innovations was a management company with specialist expertise in innovation processes and early corporate development. 

- As a business developer I supported clients with their innovation needs, while continuously identifying establishing and growing new businesses.
- I was the initiator of S:Growth Accelerator, which we spun off and renamed Seed Nordic.

Business Developer

Head of Hybrid @ Beleco 🏡👨‍💻 Subscription based furniture for office and home office 📢 Remote Evangelist 🌟

🚀 On a mission to inspire a million people to live better lives through better work
🌟 Strategic thinker with 19 years experience across consulting, technology, commercial & people roles. 

Chief People Officer at Ultimate Beauty, ensuring that our people are happy, healthy engaged and able to do great work remotely.

🎙️ Podcast Host for "The Future is Remote", I engage in insightful conversations with industry leaders and thinkers in the remote work landscape.

Kenneth Hellem

NolaSimon.com

www.nolasimon.com

🔮 Strategic Foresight
I anticipate what’s coming—not just in trends, but in how they impact people. I translate complexity into insights leaders can act on with clarity and confidence.

🌀 Narrative Intelligence
I use story as a tool for sensemaking, revealing the patterns others overlook. This helps teams align faster, build trust, and navigate change with integrity.

🌱 Human-Centered Systems Thinking
I redesign systems with both empathy and structure—connecting governance, flexibility, and inclusion in ways that actually work for people.

Hybrid/Remote Futurist

Hope & Possibilities Podcast

Hybrid/Remote Strategist| Podcast Host

Generalist World 🌀

The fastest-growing & most-loved generalist community in the world. You'll find deeper connections, lots of learning, supportive peers and incredible opportunities. --->> www.Generalist.world.com

Member - Early Adopter

Manulife

	Lead my team of experts to create a detailed social selling strategy and a plan to implement that each quarter. Analyzed our sales results and tweaked the business plan each quarter in consultation with subject matter experts 
	Recognized with the Star of Excellence for strategic thinking, awarded to less than 1% of 38,000 employees
	Grew an HR-sponsored internal community by 1000%, significantly enhancing employee voice and engagement
	Pioneered innovative sales techniques, becoming the only sales representative published on the Manulife Bank website
	Led international hackathon and innovation initiatives, driving business transformation and cross-functional collaboration

Ask me about:

- being a finalist for the innovation challenge for the bank just 3 months after taking the role
- being a brand ambassador
- winning the Canadian voting for the CEO for a Day contest (cancelled due to COVID-19)
- founding an ERG called Family to support parents during the sudden pivot to remote work
- leading the communications team for the women's leadership ERG conference on power & influence
- winning sales contests within 6 months of landing the only job in Canada based where I live
- dominating the social selling metrics - Hootsuite celebrated me regularly in meeting with execs
- being the only member of the sales team to publish an article on the bank website
- volunteering to test AI voice recognition 
- starring in change management videos to facilitate office redesign and different ways of working
- growing an audience for the Voice of the Employee HR community by 1000%
-creating the best Grade 9 day ever for my kid despite working 100% remote and not having an assigned office - this was my training ground for media exposure and an episode of my podcast.

This role was restructured in December 2020.

Business Development Director

John Hancock

This role is why I can claim being a hybrid native.

	Partnered with the U.S. sales relationship management team to redesign and implement new virtual services for under-served areas
	Advocated for hybrid/remote strategies and drove the first pilot in 2012; became the go-to team resource for leadership, project management, change management, workflows, process improvement and technical issues
	Created and beta evaluated the redefinition of the client account management role to include the sales and relationship management teams in the U.S. as essential partners, collaborating across silos and improving the span of control
	Negotiated solutions for escalated retention issues for plans worth over $50 million
	Travelled extensively across the U.S. as a company brand ambassador, using public speaking and facilitation skills to close sales and deepen client and partner relationships to improve retention
	Consulted by executive leadership to improve agility and communication within the organization 
	Served as a keynote speaker on how to lead and influence without positional power for the internal leadership development initiatives 
	Specialized in deep subject matter expertise on the most difficult and complex topics, consulted frequently by staff, senior leaders and the executive leadership team



So many stories about this role. Here are some of them:

-I was the face of relationships valued at over 2 billion dollars
-getting a US Senator fired from his day job
-travelling for business and learning how to advocate for wellness and boundaries
-breaking down siloes
-nearly dying during my commute even though I was only working one day a week in the office
-using a volunteer communications role during the global hackathon to secure a job interview
-demonstrating deep expertise during the innovation challenges by participating the most
-it took 14 people to cover my workload when I finally left

Senior Account Manager

Some of my favourite stories from this role:


- creating communication strategies to help clients after the 2008 stock market crash
- being actively pursued for a promotion but turning it down because I had small kids
- winning a Spirit of Success Team award for changing processes that improved service and eliminated boring, repetitive work

Senior Client Account Representative

One of my favourite stories from this role involves Arnold Schwarzenegger, my most viewed LinkedIn post and an episode of my podcast The Janus Oasis.  The woman who made the final decision to hire me remembered my interview 19 years later and wrote this on Linkedin in March 2022:

'Who could forget such an impressive candidate??  My pleasure! I guess I know quality thinking when I see it. 😊'

Client Account Representative

Futurist & Leadership Strategist. I help orgs lead with clarity in the messy middle of flexibility, trust & transformation. LinkedIn Top Voice (2024, 2025) 🇨🇦 Top 50 Remote Accelerator🌀

For over a decade, I’ve witnessed companies struggle with the same challenge: how to make hybrid and remote work not just functional, but exceptional. This isn’t just about productivity. It’s about creating environments where people and profits flourish together.

Why am I passionate about this?
Because I’ve lived it.

Since 2012, I’ve been at the forefront of hybrid work, managing business-critical relationships totaling more than $1 billion. I’ve seen firsthand how the right approach can transform uncertainty into opportunity.

My journey across five corporations—including two global conglomerates—taught me a crucial lesson: the future of work isn’t about location. It’s about connection. That insight led me to develop strategies that don’t just adapt to change—they drive it. Let’s face it, AI isn’t going to slow the pace of change.

What sets my approach apart?

• I blend deep research with innovative thinking
• I translate complex systems into clear, actionable stories
• I bridge the gap between employee needs and business goals

And here’s the part most people don’t see coming:
I combine systems thinking with empathy—mapping invisible dynamics like trust, power, and identity—while holding space for the very real human experience inside organizations. That duality is rare, especially at senior levels.

I’m also one of the few with narrative intelligence: the ability to decode bias in corporate language, make sense of cultural friction, and reframe stories in a way that actually shifts behavior—not just sentiment.

Add to that a board-level emotional fluency—the kind that recognizes psychological safety isn’t soft, it’s strategic. How do you find clarity in complexity and move forward when the right decision seems ambiguous?

Leaders tell me, “You’re the voice of the unheard employee,” and “It’s rare to find someone advocating so positively for a better future of work.”

But don’t just take my word for it. As a LinkedIn Top Voice for 2024—an honor awarded to fewer than 300 out of a billion users annually.

Whether I’m advising boards, speaking at global conferences, or hosting the Hope & Possibilities podcast (100+ episodes, thousands of downloads), I’m here to help leaders navigate change with confidence and compassion.

Ready to turn workplace uncertainty into your competitive advantage?
Let’s connect. nola@nolasimon.com

I help leaders and organizations navigate the future of work with foresight, humanity, and narrative intelligence — so flexible work becomes not just possible, but sustainable.

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The Battle

Kenneth Hellem

Nola Simon

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