Nancy Pak
Consumer Products & Naturals Industry Expert
Nancy Pak is a strategic and entrepreneurial CEO with U.S. and international general management and marketing experience for leading global brands. She has over 20 years of experience across multiple countries and business settings in highly-competitive retail environments. Nancy’s experience in strategic planning, market and channel expansion, brand positioning, innovation and integrated marketing communications in the naturals industry and mass market consumer products informs all her work. Nancy is a passionate, agile leader with a growth mindset who thrives on building highly effective teams and developing and mentoring the next generation of leaders.
Most recently, Nancy was the Vice President & General Manager (CEO equivalent) of Tom’s of Maine Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Colgate Palmolive, based in Kennebunk Maine. Nancy led this full end-to-end naturals personal care company across commercial functions and manufacturing with P&L ownership. She has a strong record of executing change management initiatives, organizational restructuring, and new product launches that delivered significant sales, market share, and profitability growth.
During her tenure at Tom’s, Nancy positioned the business for robust, sustainable growth by driving distribution expansion across brick and mortar and e-commerce channels in the U.S. and Canada; attaining greater operational effectiveness and efficiency, and by nurturing and strengthening the successful and productive culture that was the founders’ legacy. Nancy championed several important initiatives at Tom’s including donating 10% of profits to sustainability and educational initiatives, and supporting employees’ benefit of 5% paid time off to volunteer.
In March 2019, Nancy enabled Tom’s of Maine to become a Certified B Corporation, one of a select number of natural oral and personal care brands to achieve this certification.
Nancy started her professional career at Colgate Palmolive and held progressive roles within the Company in Marketing, across the U.S., Greater Asia and Europe. She lived in Bangkok, Thailand and Warsaw, Poland with her family while working for Colgate. Nancy was the winner of the Colgate Chairman’s Global Annual You Can Make A Difference Award in 2013 and was part of a team at Colgate that received a patent for a children’s manual toothbrush.
In addition to her work in consumer products, Nancy has devoted much of her free time to activities that strengthen communities. She was elected Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for the American School of Warsaw (2014 – 2015); is a founder of the not-for-profit education and mentoring organization Minds Matter; and collaborated closely with the CEO of the United Way of York County, Maine to move forward philanthropic community initiatives.
Nancy earned an MBA in Marketing from Columbia Business School in New York, a BA in Political Science from Columbia University, and completed an Executive Certificate in Global Leadership in 2011 from the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College.
Nancy, her husband Jim, and their kids Cece and Ryan, live in the Portland, Maine area. They enjoy beach walks with their Boston Terrier Manny, being on Sebago Lake and traveling the world to experience new cultures and people.