Meet Our Team

Each member of NCG’s core team was selected based on expertise, reliability, grace under pressure, and collaborative spirit. Each is a proven performer with technical skill, business savvy, and wide-ranging communications and entertainment experience. All team members have served as key collaborators on projects for Global 200 organizations.

Through our established affiliations with nationally recognized specialty services, we can also seamlessly provide:

• Video and multimedia production
• Technologists
• Artists
• Staging and exhibits designers
• Meeting support
• Human resources professionals
• Organizational development experts …

…As well as highly specialized talent in change management, quality control, and diversity.

Ron Nicodemus
Team Leader and Chief Strategist

Ron is driven by passion, collaboration, and a desire to promote a better understanding of complex issues to make a positive difference.

He draws on more than three decades of media and communication experience to achieve results that are deployable, trackable, and measurable. He has earned the respect of the corporate world and the entertainment industry because he delivers on both the ideas and the execution. He demands the same of the rest of the team. He has developed an extensive network of leading industry professionals as well.

Ron is a savvy, conceptual thinker with the proven ability to lead creative teams to strategic and tactical solutions. His work integrates total business solutions, from research and positioning through production and outreach. In his career of producing national TV programming, running top corporate communications companies, and as a new business and conference developer for Disney, he has gained both the credibility and contacts to leverage communications and distribution channels of marketing, public relations, broadcast television, and new media.

In his diverse career, he has produced national television programming in the arts, education and business for PBS, CBS Cable, Showtime, Time Warner, The New York Times, BusinessWeek magazine and other outlets. He produced the first and only live telecast from Broadway of the hit musical Sophisticated Ladies.

Ron directed two NYC-based corporate communications businesses that developed product, communications, and training strategies for Fortune 100 clients such as AT&T, American Express, GE, Pfizer, Sony and IBM, including high-impact marketing events for the NFL at the Super Bowl.

As one of the pioneers who launched the Disney Institute adult learning community, Ron created a special events business that eventually changed the way that Disney marketed the entire Disney Institute product. With the encouragement of Michael Eisner, he created a breakthrough conference business that examined critical issues in healthcare, education, peace, business, environment and science. In doing so, Ron created collaborations with the U.S. Department of Education, the Jane Goodall Institute, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month Campaign and the New Yorker magazine, among many others.

Ron works with organizations to transcend frontiers and change paradigms. In addition to the innovative Disney Institute, he drove development of the CBS Cable Arts network and co-founded the BioAgenda Institute, an executive think tank that examined policy and defining issues for the biotech and life sciences industries. He also helped Brevard County, Florida, create a new, unifying image and brand for the county. For Howard County, Maryland, he developed the strategic plan for Choose Civility to take the initiative to the national level. His nonprofit support has included the national launch of an individual giving campaign for the American Red Cross as well as creating their first corporate sponsor engagement event, the American Bar Association’s Division for Public Education, and the launch of a national teen safe driving campaign for the National Safety Council, among others on both local and national levels.

In support of public education, Ron has helped lead and develop several innovative STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) initiatives: one focused on a rural education model for the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center, representing 17 county school systems and higher education institutions in Virginia; in K-12 for the Howard County Public School System in Maryland, one of the country’s top public school systems, building an innovative new model of partnership between business and education; and the same now for a collaboration between Baltimore County Public Schools and the Community College of Baltimore County.

Meet The Core Team…

Richard Stone
Chief Storyteller and Writer

Rick is a pioneer in using the power of story to transform brands and entire communities. He created the curriculum for the Disney Institute's StoryArts program and taught courses on the importance of storytelling in community life as an adjunct professor at University of Central Florida and Valencia Community College. He also served on the adjunct faculty of the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, VA, teaching the applications of narrative to strategic thinking to clients such as the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Rick founded the Imagine This! Company, an organization that is developing television, educational curricula, and home based games and activities based on using storytelling as a tool to enhance literacy and imaginative skills. Rick is the StoryAnalytics Master at i.d.e.a.s., and since 2003 he has been a member of i.d.e.a.s. StoryJam TM team, designing and facilitating this custom story discovery tool for diverse clients. He is the author of two books about the impact of storytelling and has served on the national boards of directors of the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, TN, and the Spiritual Eldering Institute in Boulder, CO. Rick was previously the president of Stone/Golabuk Marketing & Advertising in Orlando, Florida.

Representative Clients: Roche Biomedical, Novant Health, U.S. Air Force, University of Central Florida.

Kim Sheeter
Concept Strategist and Writer

Kim Sheeter looks for the story in the strategy and then finds the most compelling way to share that story. Her experience encompasses research; speechwriting; multimedia and video scripts; educational and training materials; theming and messaging for fundraising, promotional and motivational campaigns; packaging and ad copy; and conference scripting.

Her creative collaborations have won 11 American Business Awards and recognition from the Society for Technical Communication and International Association of Business Communicators.  Recently, she was the writer on the team that took home the 2008 Gold Award for Best Total Integration/Product Launch from Medical Marketing & Media. This project leveraged word-of-mouth, viral video and social networking to launch a new MRI scanner.

Representative Clients: AAA, Scholastic Book Fairs, P&G, American Red Cross, Campbell University, Siemens Healthcare USA, Disney, the U.S. Veterans Administration, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Nichole Kelly
Social Media Strategist

Nichole Kelly is the social media strategist that understands the bottom line. She was the social media pioneer who innovated the marketing industry by measuring social media results to core business objectives: revenue and costs. Nichole is known for her clear understanding of business needs and renowned for her ability to show executives where social media is delivering.

She has been highlighted by leading organizations as a social media strategy and measurement expert including Forrester Research, Marketing Profs, Radian 6 and HootSuite. Additionally, she was selected to instruct courses on social media strategy at John’s Hopkins University to students and faculty. Nichole's work has been profiled in two leading social media books as examples of the right way to tie social media strategies into organizational goals.

Nichole speaks across the country and is a highly respected blogger who contributes to two of AdAge's Top 150 marketing blogs such as Social Media Examiner ranked #4 and Social Media Explorer ranked #30.

Jim Harden
Organizational Development Designer and Facilitator

Jim is the President and Founder of The Greystone Consulting Group, Inc. – an alliance of behavioral scientists, organizational development practitioners, trainers, coaches and group facilitators. Despite challenges that seem unique – or even insurmountable – energy, common purpose, spirit, and unlimited potential are present in every organization. What is missing is the key to unlock them, which Jim provides.

Jim has his undergraduate degrees in Educational Theory and Applied Behavioral Science. He received his Master of Science in Organization Development (OD) from American University and the NTL Institute for Behavioral Science after leaving a 31-year career in the federal research and development laboratory system where he held a variety of senior management, scientific, and engineering positions. Jim’s innovative group development processes and advanced facilitation theory continue to win widespread recognition and respect. He is best known for his ability to engage participants in focused dialogue and appreciative inquiry that rapidly moves groups to higher levels of learning and development. As a masterful storyteller, Jim illustrates key concepts and ideas with humor and anecdotes. Jim is also sought after for his dynamic abilities as a motivational speaker.

Representative Clients: Goddard Space Flight Center, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Constellation Energy, Space Science Telescope Institute, Roche Pharmaceuticals, Naval Sea Systems Command, National Cooperative Bank (NCB), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Cherokee Information Services.

Rita MacDermott
Creative Director, Event and Video Producer

Rita calls on more than 20 years of experience in branded entertainment production and creative development. Rita is a “hands-on” creative director and producer who understands how each component of a project affects the whole. Two recent projects serve as a case in point. As creative producer for the M&M Mars International Expo and Conference, her responsibilities ranged from creative development of show content and technical coordination of all general/breakout meetings to coordinating the import and export of 80 country affiliates’ products and managing union-labor requirements. As executive producer for Mitel, Inc’s annual Business Partner Conferences and Benjamin Moore’s conferences, Rita’s duties ran the gamut from creative development and technical coordination to set design, video and graphic elements, collateral materials and hotel negotiations.

Rita’s early experience helped her evolve naturally into a producer of large-scale events. She served as production manager for the Halftime Shows of the 1992 and 1996 Super Bowls and associate producer for Coca Cola’s 1996 Olympic theme park in Atlanta, Ga. Rita also produced a pre-Grammy party for Arista President Clive Davis and managed all entertainment and show implementation for two NBA All-Star Weekend events. When Carlson Companies celebrated its 60th anniversary, Rita served as show producer for a 900-person cast that performed for an audience of 5,000 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Representative Clients: Benjamin Moore, BMG, Choice Hotels International, Delta Air Lines, Hewlett Packard, Mechanical Contractors Association, Mitel, MSNBC, the NFL Alumni, Ortho Biotech, Quorum, Random House Publishing, Disney Event Production.