Nicole Drayton

Nicole Drayton serves as a Sergeant and Police Leader at the Cleveland Clinic Police Department in Cleveland, Ohio. She has nearly 30 years of experience in law enforcement, including 11 and a half years with the Housing Authority Police Department and 19 years with the Cleveland Clinic, where she currently runs two hospitals and supervises 21 officers. Drayton earned a master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology, which has supported her leadership in a male-dominated field. She attributes her success to learning to control what she can control, taking accountability for her actions, and benefiting from mentorship to navigate leadership politics. As an African-American female leader, she faces challenges related to gender and race, noting she is the only one who looks like her among 14 sergeants at the second largest hospital in the county. Drayton is passionate about training and mentoring, teaching psychology at the college level, human relations, human trafficking, child abuse, and domestic violence in the police academy, and she emphasizes building up her team members so they can see their own potential.