In December of 1996 an historic event took place in technology when NeXT Inc was sold to Apple bringing Steve Jobs back to co-CEO. What few know is that prior to that, NeXT was on a path to IPO and Nicole DeMeo had just completed writing the prospectus. In addition, she was leading marketing and communications for NeXT and had successfully launched the $70M Web Objects product in preparation. She was also positioning the NeXT executive team and their personal brands to be accepted by the public market. Steve Jobs’ personal brand had fallen out of favor, and Nicole worked personally with him to get him featured on the covers of Red Herring, Wired, and Businessweek as well as major articles in The New York Times, Fortune, and many more. Then, in December 1996, Apple stepped forward, and Nicole was one of eight people on the NeXT M&A team who led the company through the historic acquisition. On December 20th, 1996, with 4 satellite trucks and 200 members of the global media reporting, Apple Computer acquired NeXT for $429M, bringing Steve Jobs back to Apple.