Company: Cognitive Communications LLC
Who: Nancy Siegel
Age: 35
Has Held Title For: 18 months
Previous Title: VP of Operations
Degree: BA in English, University of Michigan
As a young girl growing up in Long Island, Nancy Siegel spent hours galloping through fields on horses from a local stable. As it turns out, her childhood pastime was good training for her work at New York City-based Cognitive Communications (www.cognit.com), an intranet-applications company. As the firm’s Thought Jockey, Siegel harnesses the creative power of a diverse stable of talents. So far, Cognitive is on a winning streak, with such trophy clients as Corning, Seagram, Apple, BellSouth Cellular, and Xerox to its credit.
Why keep a Thought Jockey on staff?
As Cognitive began to grow fast, we realized we needed a system for sharing lessons learned. My job is to corral that information.
How do you “jockey” thoughts?
I oversee our own intranet, where we created a knowledge-management system called “Deep Thoughts.”
When do you know you’re headed for the winner’s circle?
When I see someone capitalize on something that somebody else figured out.
So how tall are you?
Not quite five feet two. People here joke that I’ve got everything but the whip!