Our Team

Ocean Exchange Team

Nickelle Presley

Advisor for climate and ocean tech startups

Nickelle is passionate about ocean health, planetary restoration, and mitigating the effects of climate change.

She has over 10 years of experience working with startups and excels at identifying opportunities to expand their impact and guiding them through various growth stages. Her experiences span across strategy, product, organizational operations management, and developing programs that amplify a company’s mission. She most recently did this at an early-stage EdTech company, where she grew the organization to achieve a valuation of over $1 billion and expanded their portfolio to support over half of the K-12 students in the U.S. Now her focus is on supporting our planet. She is an advisor for climate and ocean tech startups where she helps entrepreneurs scale their sustainable solutions.

She enjoys helping organizations lock down funding, reach product-market fit, and engage partners from various sectors to develop programs that scale. When not at work, you can find Nickelle volunteering at the Marine Mammal Care Center and the Aquarium of the Pacific, as well as exploring the beautiful California kelp forests. Her goal is to restore our ocean’s health and help people develop respect and stewardship for our ocean and its inhabitants.

Contact Us

Ocean Exchange invites you to learn more about Awards Program, our ecosystem and success of our award winners and participants. Together, we can chart a powerful course to help ensure the future of our oceans and the Blue Economy.

“Ocean Exchange has a platform to enable people with information that they need to know about the ocean and then to showcase new technologies that are on the forefront of really helping the ocean and the planet.”

“The quality of the content and the people who are involved with Ocean Exchange is all high end.”

“Besides funding, Ocean Exchange provides access to a wide area network of incredibly talented people in organizations that really do just want to help people.”

“Ocean Exchange is really about helping the little guys grow and in so doing, helping the big guys be better ocean citizens.”

“Ocean Exchange seems to be much more focused on bringing to light under-capitalized, wonderful new technology ideas. And it’s all about two-way access to this new technology and to the people who can help with the experience to grow that technology.”

“Ocean Exchange is a force multiplier to enable sustainable innovation.”

“Ocean Exchange is a global, novel innovation forum that has a greater ability to attract a broader range of impactful stakeholders than any other event that’s out there.”

“Unquestionably, one of Ocean Exchange’s primary strengths is how it brings together people from different paths. That makes its event a delegator experience as well as experience for an innovator or awards nominee.”

“Ocean Exchange is entirely different from any of the other organizations that I’m involved in. It is about sustainable innovation. I think it’s also very different in the extremely broad range of stakeholders that it involves.”

“There’s nothing better than going to an event or engaging with people so you walk away and say, ‘Wow!’”