About Nicola
Most people's careers follow a path. Nicola's has followed questions.
Nicola started as a physiotherapist working across the NHS, New Zealand and sport, including UK Athletics. Not long into that work, she noticed something: the best work she was involved in was collaborative and driven by deep curiosity.
Athletes who performed best under pressure were the ones asking better questions of themselves and their environment. That discipline, Nicola came to call question architecture: the belief that the quality of the questions asked is itself a strategic capability, not a personality trait.
Following an MSc, Nicola led a management buy-out of tops:health in 2013, an independent healthcare business she owned and scaled for over a decade, exiting to a larger group in 2024. That period taught her strategy, leadership, governance, stakeholder management and decision-making under real pressure, rounded off by an Executive MBA at Warwick in 2022.
Since then, the same discipline has kept building. She began angel investing, joined Balmoral Partners' investment committee, took on a UK Ambassador role for GSIC, powered by Microsoft, and became a venture partner and advisory portfolio holder through Curioso Studio. She co-hosts the Accelerate podcast, at the intersection of performance and strategy.
That range - practitioner, operator, investor, strategist - has given her a particular pull toward women's sport: a market still being priced, still being built, and still wide open to whoever asks the right questions early enough.
Nicola helps leadership teams, entrepreneurs and boards think more clearly about where they are, where they need to go, and what they're missing to drive performance.
Current Roles
Chief Strategy Officer
Hytro
UK Ambassador
GSIC Powered by Microsoft
Venture Partner & Advisory Portfolio
Curioso Studio
Co-host
Accelerate Podcast with Inform Performance
Credentials
Academic
MSc Physiotherapy
Academic
Executive MBA · Warwick Business School
Practitioner
Advanced Practitioner · UK Athletics
Entrepreneur
Managing Director & Exit · tops:health
Career Timeline
-
2026
Named UK Ambassador, GSIC powered by Microsoft
2026 -
20262026
Appointed Leadership Board Advisor
-
2026
Launched the Accelerate Podcast show
2026 -
20252025
Invested in Balmoral Partners and joined the Investment Committee
-
2025
Completed the Strategy Design and Implementation Certificate
2025 -
20242024
Appointed Chief Strategy Officer
-
2024
Exited the Physiotherapy business
2024 -
20242024
Launched a newsletter and first podcast show
-
2023
Winner, EMBA Dissertation Poster, Leadership and Performance Management
2023 -
20232023
Commenced Angel Investing
-
2023
Appointed Board Member
2023 -
20232023
Awarded an Academic Scholarship to complete an Executive MBA
-
2021
Completed the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses UK programme
2021 -
20202020
Acquired a second Physiotherapy business
-
2020
Appointed Non-Executive Director
2020 -
20132013
Led a management buy-out of a Physiotherapy business and founded a private Strength and Conditioning facility
-
2013
Worked with endurance athletes at St Mary's University and UK Athletics
2013 -
20122012
CSP and MACP awards for MSc Advanced Manipulative Physiotherapy
-
2011
Wide range of clinical and sport experiences in the UK and New Zealand
2011 -
20052005
Completed BSc (Hons) Physiotherapy
Newsletter
Sharper questions, every Thursday.
Weekly thinking on decision-making, sport, and where the questions haven't caught up yet. Drop your email below to get it every Thursday.