Nicholas MacDonald, M.B.A., F.P.Q.P.

Nicholas MacDonald is a Lecturer of Small Business Management at the University of Maine at Machias. Nicholas holds his Financial Paraplanner Qualified Professional Certification from the College of Financial Planning, Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Management from the Forbes School of Business at Ashford University, and Master of Business Administration in Finance and Information Systems from the Forbes School of Business & Technology at Ashford University.

Nicholas transferred from a career in contact center leadership for Machias Savings Bank in the Fall of 2022. Through coaching agents, he fostered a culture that includes a positive attitude, sense of urgency, family-first philosophy, community involvement, effective leadership, employee engagement & teamwork, and relationship building. On top of this culture, the customer service team at Machias Savings is built on employee empowerment and growth. Each employee is empowered to create creative solutions to a customer’s situation. This empowerment allows the agents at Machias Savings to develop a truly exceptional experience. An experience may be as simple as building a conversation around recent activity on someone’s account or as in-depth as sending the customer a gift from their favorite store. The drive for growth at Machias Savings Bank’s contact center doesn’t stop at the employee’s current job description. If an agent wishes to learn about mortgage lending, small business banking, or financial planning, the door is open for them to explore. Nicholas is a creator at heart, which lends well to continuous R&D to increase efficiencies and improve the customer experience. He has an innate ability to see when a process is not employee or customer-focused. This ability led to numerous projects that brought significant efficiency gain and customer experience improvement, including implementing a unified contact center solution, Voice Authentication, and Workforce Management. One key process improvement strategy he maintains is that not all modifications need to be big; small incremental changes can add up quickly and significantly improve the customer and agent experience. He is a national public speaker in Customer Experience and coaches leaders to grow their teams best and take the right tech strategy with his business, Unique Truth. He owns and operates a small goat dairy farm. He has a strong passion for horsemanship and spends his downtime training his young Quarter Horse.

In his transition to UMaine Machias, he has worked diligently with UMaine Machias leadership and the University of Maine Maine Business School to transform the Small Business and Entrepreneurship program at UMaine Machias into a Small Business Management program. In addition to working within the university system, he has met with influential local business leaders like Justin King, president of King Construction Services; Charles Rudelitch, executive director of Sunrise Economic Council; and Larry Barker, president and CEO of Machias Savings Bank, to figure out what skills businesses need in their graduates, from organizational behavior to finance management. The Small Business Management programs are designed for the businesses that truly run this country.

He teaches courses focused on small business management, customer relationship management, personal finance, small business finance, leadership, organizational behavior, marketing management for small businesses, and building strategic partnerships for small business growth.

Nicholas is Interim-Chair of the Board of Directors of Downeast Community Partners, Treasurer of Whispering Pine Equine Alliance, Member of the Business Studies Advisory Committee at Washington County Community College, Planning Board Member of Jonesboro, ME, and President of Washington County Extension Advisory Council. He has served as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Downeast Community Partners, State Committee Member of the Maine Democratic Party, Community Captain for Ringelstein for the U.S. Senate, and Digital Coordinator of the Washington County Democratic Committee.

 

Education

  • B.A., Finance & Information Systems, Forbes School of Business & Technology, Ashford University (2019)
  • A., Organizational Management, Forbes School of Business, Ashford University (2016)

Professional Certification

  • Financial Paraplanner Qualified Professional, College of Financial Planning (2020)
  • Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt, The Lean Six Sigma Company (2022)

Teaching Areas

  • Business and Personal Finance
  • Leadership & Organizational Behavior
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Marketing Management
  • Building Strategic Relationships for Business Growth

Research Interests

  • Effective leadership skills and increased diversity impact on inequality.
  • Actionable steps that small businesses can take to provide a living wage.
  • Personal finance education’s effect on a rural community.

Mr. MacDonald’s CV

Social Media

Presentations, Panels, & Podcasts

Conference Presentations

MacDonald, N. D. (2022, October 13). What Everyone Ought to Know About the Latest Technology Trends Affecting Contact Center Efficiency and Customer Strategies [Conference Presentation]. Contact Center Week by Customer Management Practice IQPC.

MacDonald, N. D. (2021, December 15). How to Use Artificial Intelligence Tools to Optimize the Effectiveness of Human Agents [Conference Presentation]. Contact Center Week by Customer Management Practice IQPC.

MacDonald, N. D. (2020, January 27). Contact Center Operations Track: Match Made in Heaven: How to Find Your BPO [Conference Presentation]. Contact Center Week by Customer Management Practice IQPC.

 

Panels

MacDonald, N. D., Porter, B., Trotter, V., & McCreery, A. (2021, October 21). Using Artificial Intelligence to Optimize the Effectiveness of Human Agents [Panel]. Contact Center Week by Customer Management Practice.

MacDonald, N. D., Lawson, K., Lichtenstein, A., Merrick, M., & Konda, K. (2020, November 17). The Next Generation of Customer Care [Panel]. Digital Business Summit by ISG.

 

Podcasts

Belfiore, B., & MacDonald, N. (2022, October 13). Maximizing the Human in the Call Center [Podcast]. CallTalk With Benchmark Portal. https://resources.benchmarkportal.com/calltalk/maximizing-the-human-in-the-call-center