Nicole Stovall

Nicole Stovall is Vice President of Merck’s Global Diversity & Inclusion Center of Excellence (GDI CoE), bringing a distinctive blend of legal, ethics, investigations, and business leadership experience to her role. Since leading the GDI CoE from April 2025 to present, Nicole has focused on embedding inclusion into the everyday workflows of the business, linking inclusive practices to measurable business outcomes, advancing fairness throughout the company and strengthening belonging across global teams. Prior to this role, Nicole spent more than two decades in Merck’s Office of the General Counsel, where she led employment and labor legal teams and later the company’s global investigations function. In those roles, she advised senior executives on complex workplace, culture, and compliance matters; led enterprise training and communications that strengthened ethical leadership and speak-up culture; and guided high-stakes people decisions across regions and business lines.  Nicole is widely regarded as a problem solver who is able to navigate complexity with clarity, precision and empathy.  Based on Nicole’s unique experiences, she is deeply attuned to the connection between culture, risk, talent, and business performance—and built the broad expertise she now brings to advancing inclusion as a strategic business capability. Nicole holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.  Nicole is married to her husband Tony and the proud mother of two daughters, Myla and Sydney.