Meet Nicole Mahoney
CEO, Break the Ice Media
Host, Destination on the Left podcast
The backstory
You might say being an entrepreneur is in Nicole's DNA. As a student, she worked for her dad at the family's audio and car stereo shop, eventually taking on their annual Sound Off event held in their store parking lot. The natural marketer in her took over, and the event grew to mini-festival size, attracting up to five thousand people on a Sunday. When her dad told her to "A to Z" a project, she learned to do every step of business development, marketing strategy, PR, and branding while working her way through college and her Masters.
Professional path
With a talent for creating special events, Nicole went on to work in sports marketing at Frontier Field in Rochester, and as the executive director of the internationally known Lilac Festival. Later on she headed the Canandaigua NY BID. There were projects for Visit Rochester as well.
In 2009, she founded Break the Ice Media, with more than 20 years experience in tourism marketing.
As a business owner, Nicole knows what it takes to be successful. She founded BTI to help businesses tell their brand story through public relations, digital and traditional channels. She has the ability to uncover unique marketing opportunities, and develop marketing and public relations initiatives that help clients build long-term success.
Inside the office she loves:
Working with clients to understand their marketing needs, developing plans and executing those plans. Leading and nurturing her team. (You might call her The Founding Mother.) Watching results happen for clients.
Outside the office she loves:
Her family (husband and four daughters). Traveling on family vacations. Maine. Playing euchre with her long-time girlfriends every month. Living in wine country (and drinking that wine!).
Posts from Nicole
Collaboration research: What did 150+ travel, tourism, and hospitality professionals say?
Backed by stats In December of 2020, we surveyed 161 travel, tourism, and hospitality professionals to learn more about their…
Read More5 Lessons Learned During the Travel Pause
As a business serving clients in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry exclusively, when the travel pause began in March…
Read MoreApplying Tourism Marketing Strategies to Talent Attraction
Communities looking to attract new residents or improve talent attraction for their local businesses could steal a few strategies from the tourism marketing playbook.
Read MoreCo-opetition: Good For Business
I am a huge believer in co-opetition – where perceived competitors cooperate and together create something bigger than they could…
Read MoreTourism Innovation: Five 2020 Practices to Carry into 2021
Let’s not let the last 12 months go to waste. It may seem hard to find but, I know there…
Read More