You have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone in order to experience growth...
Nichelle Maynard-ElliottFounder & CEO
Nichelle Maynard-Elliott is an accomplished dealmaker and advisor to boards and senior management. With over 25 years of extensive financial and legal experience in mergers and acquisitions, business development and strategic alliances, Maynard-Elliott has a proven track record of creating shareholder value. Additionally, throughout her executive and legal career, Maynard-Elliott has led the charge in influencing and developing diversity and inclusion cultures in traditionally white male dominated environments.
Since 2018, Maynard-Elliott has served as an independent director of Element Solutions Inc. (NYSE: ESI), a $5.7B global specialty chemicals company. In 2019, she became a member of the Compensation and Audit Committees. In 2021 she serves as Audit Committee Chairperson.
In May 2021, Maynard-Elliott joined the board of Xerox Holdings Corp. (NYSE: XRX) and sits on the Audit Committee.
In June 2021, Maynard-Elliott was appointed trustee of The Advisors’ Inner Circle Fund III, Gallery Trust, Delaware Wilshire Private Markets Fund, Delaware Wilshire Private Markets Master Fund and Delaware Wilshire Private Markets Tender Fund and director of Chiron Capital Allocation Fund Ltd.
In July 2021, Maynard-Elliott was elected to the board of Lucid Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID) where she also serves on the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.
Maynard-Elliott is the former Executive Director, M&A, for Praxair, Inc. (wholly owned subsidiary of Linde plc), a leading industrial gases/engineering company. From 2011 to 2019, Maynard-Elliott was responsible for evaluating and negotiating global acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures and other business combinations for Praxair and its affiliates in the Americas and Asia. During her tenure, Maynard-Elliott structured, negotiated and executed complex deals to drive revenue growth. She played an integral role in the Praxair Inc./ Linde AG merger, leading the complex divestiture and carveout workstreams across Europe, North and South America, China, India and Korea.
Prior to serving as Executive Director, M&A, Maynard-Elliott served as Senior Counsel and then Assistant General Counsel in Praxair’s law department. Maynard-Elliott’s responsibilities included M&A and commercial transactions for several wholly owned subsidiaries. As Assistant General Counsel, she served as primary legal counsel for the packaged gases distribution business and healthcare services business and had oversight of legal counsel representing the surface technologies business.
Prior to joining Praxair in 2003, Maynard-Elliott practiced corporate law, specializing in M&A and private equity at large corporate law firms including Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Pryor Cashman and Kelley Drye & Warren.
In August 2020, Maynard-Elliott was named to Transaction Advisors’ M&A Leadership Council, an M&A thought leader roundtable addressing the execution of complex corporate transactions.
Education and Civic Commitments
Former civic commitments include appointment (June 2020 – June 2021) as co-chair of the Council on Race & Equity for the Town of New Castle, New York, where she and her co-chair oversaw 100+ community volunteers committed to achieving, sustaining and upholding racial equity in education, outreach, housing and planning, business and commerce and town planning.
Maynard-Elliott received a Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law and a BA in Economics from Brown University.
Maynard-Elliott and her husband live in Mount Kisco, NY with a daughter who is a rising freshman at Brown University and a son who is pursuing his BFA in drama at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
Let's talk, Explosive Growth is Right Around the Corner
“The essence of transactional work is bringing different sides together…” – Nichelle Maynard-Elliott