Nicole Gokcebay-Uriarte
Nicole Gokcebay Uriarte is a strategic executive leader and former attorney with extensive experience in corporate compliance, investigations, and global business development. She currently serves as Executive Vice President of Strategic Development at Digilock, where she leads enterprise growth initiatives, strategic partnerships, and market expansion efforts for the global leader in electronic and smart locking solutions. In this role, she works closely with executive leadership to align sales, operations, product development, and supply chain strategy across an expanding international footprint.
Before transitioning into business leadership, Nicole spent nearly seven years as an attorney at Miller & Chevalier Chartered, where she focused on white-collar criminal defense, cross-border investigations, and corporate compliance matters. Rising from associate to counsel, she advised multinational clients on regulatory risk, workplace conduct, and anti-corruption issues, and contributed to thought leadership on compliance culture and organizational accountability. Her legal career also included international experience through earlier clerkships and fellowships in Ireland and the United States, shaping her global perspective and expertise in complex regulatory environments.
Earlier in her life, Nicole was a college gymnast, an experience that continues to influence her leadership philosophy and commitment to teamwork, resilience, and performance under pressure. She has also been actively engaged in pro bono legal work and advocacy efforts, including supporting survivors of abuse through litigation that helped secure justice after decades. Today, she combines her legal background, strategic business leadership, and values-driven approach to help organizations grow responsibly while strengthening culture, integrity, and long-term impact.
• District of Columbia Bar Admission
• New York Bar Admission
• The George Washington University Law School- J.D.
• University of California, Berkeley- B.A.
• Trinity College Dublin
• St. Vincent de Paul High School
• Amnesty International
What do you attribute your success to?
I've had an amazing upbringing. My parents are both immigrants, and I'm a first-generation American. They invested everything in my education, and I really would not have achieved what I've achieved without that investment. Beyond my parents, it's the people who've helped me along the way. I think especially for young women coming into their career, it can be daunting, and I've had a lot of amazing female mentors along the way who really have taken a chance on me. Now that I'm growing in my responsibilities, I can pay that forward.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I'm going to pick two, because I can't pick one. The first is, be afraid and do it anyway. One of my most beloved mentors told me that from day one, and I took it to heart, and it's never led me astray. The second one is kind of related, and it's, you can do hard things. Whenever there's a challenge, I think the human instinct is to question whether you can do it, and I think the more you do hard things, the more receipts and evidence you have that you can do hard things, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in this way.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would pass along the be afraid and do it anyway. If you think you're not qualified for a position, apply anyway. I think you have to surround yourself with people who you believe are kind of in your league, because when you surround yourself with greatness like that, you start to embrace it. So that would be my advice - to be bold.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say challenges are global instability and the impact that has on supply chains. For a company like Digilock that owns a supply chain and has operations in various parts of the world, including China and Turkey, those are not high-conflict zones, but what happens in and around those zones really impacts stability and the ability to predict whether there's going to be a tariff, or whether, like we're experiencing now, there's a war in Iran. So that has presented some difficulties, and I think that's true for any global company, especially as the world continues to become interconnected. If something goes wrong in one part of the world, it's a domino effect. Despite the negative rhetoric around AI, I think AI will present more positive opportunities than negative ones. I think it will help to create more jobs, even if those jobs look different. So I think that's an opportunity.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity is paramount. Not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. I think the best you can do to model positive behavior is to do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it. And kindness. I think kindness goes a long way.