Meet our founder
Our founder
Nicole Zheng partners with technology leaders at the moments that define their companies and careers. As founder of Elev18, she brings a rare combination: seven CMO roles across seed to IPO, including Minim where she served as cofounder and president, paired with ICF-recognized executive coaching training from UPenn.
The practice exists because Nicole kept seeing the same pattern: companies funded faster than their leaders could develop, burning through talent and momentum in the process. Now she coaches founders and executives through the decisions that keep them up at night: the fire they're avoiding, the reorg they know is coming, the delegation they haven't figured out. She's been recognized as Female Executive of the Year and Top Leader in Technology, but what matters more is the intel-scale impact her approach can have: structured thought partnership that turns challenge into repeatable judgment.
Nicole continues to provide marketing consulting services as a fractional CMO and embedded growth partner. Her engineering degrees from Carnegie Mellon and passion for emerging technologies, including AI, inform how she builds marketing systems—data-driven, balanced with creative precision. She's led through M&A integrations, rebrands that repositioned companies for public markets, and wild ride of hyper growth.
Nicole believes practicing authenticity and values in the workplace catalyze growth. She is located in NYC with her husband (also a tech CMO) and two rescue dogs. Nicole is a volunteer dog foster for two shelter organizations and a member of the Village Temple.
Our mission
Elev18 was launched to address a leadership development crisis hiding in plain sight. The average CEO tenure in recent research is falling: one study gives CEO tenure hitting a record low of 6.8 years in H1 2025, down from 7.7 years in H1 2024. VP of Sales tenure has also collapsed. Every leadership replacement costs 6-12 months of momentum.
We're funding companies faster than we're developing the leaders running them. Founders get million-dollar checks and board advisors, but not the daily coaching that builds capacity. The result: companies bleed talent, preserve nothing of their culture, and pay the tax of constant turnover.
Meanwhile, 83% of organizations claim developing leaders matters, but only 9% do it well. L&D budgets flow into seminars and workshops that inspire but don't stick. No personalization. No accountability. No real follow-through.
Elev18 exists to deliver structured thought partnership, backed by through ICF-recognized coaching methods and years of real operating experience. This isn't therapy or traditional consulting. It's coaching grounded in what actually works. The company also provides hands-on GTM advisory and leadership by our founder, a 7x CMO in tech.
The results speak for themselves. Companies with strong coaching cultures see 46%better performance. Employees who receive regular coaching are 3.2 times more likely to stay engaged. The companies that invest in developing their leaders stop bleeding talent and start compounding growth. Every leader deserves more than a playbook. They deserve a partner.