Nicole James

Nicole James most recently served as the Global Head of People for both the Square business unit and the enterprise wide foundational engineering team at Block (NYSE: SQ). She joined Block in January 2020 and under her leadership the Square People team contributed to company growth as Square scaled from 2,000 to 6,000 employees. Nicole resourced and built out the business unit people function spanning Human Resources, Talent, Operations, Learning and Development, and Communications and led a 180-person team across North America, Europe and APAC. As a senior executive on the Block people leadership team, Nicole led enterprise-wide programs impacting Block’s 13,000 employees ranging from Return to Work Initiatives, Global Expansion, along with M&A and post-integration activities.

Prior to Square, Nicole spent over eleven years in academic medicine where she was Head of Human Resources for a medical school with dual responsibility as Chief of Staff to the Dean. With over 15 years of experience operating at the executive level, Nicole’s ability to navigate ambiguity, while putting structure in place, has proved invaluable. Her passion is identifying and developing talent and positioning them to grow the business and grow their own careers.

Nicole earned her undergraduate degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an international MBA from Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, Spain. She resides in South Florida with her husband and two sons.