“Julie delivers actionable insights. I hired Julie to help our company better understand our consumers and our competitive advantages in a very high-growth, nascent category. Julie provided very thorough, thoughtful analyses and assessment and many immediately actionable, high impact strategies, with distinct tactical recommendations for different consumer segments. Her findings and recommendations provided a clear path for long term brand building as well as immediate sales growth.
She conceptualized the best approach to answer management’s questions, which included several quantitative primary research studies, shopper intercepts, analysis of publicly syndicated data, and analysis of our own POS and loyalty program data. I recommend her enthusiastically to help understand a business and set a strategic growth plan!”
Eva Safar, Marketing Professional, May 2018
“I have engaged Julie for multiple extended projects over the past 6 years, because she is a superior marketer as well as a general manager and capably drives any assignment to success. I have hired Julie to do everything from new concept & product development, positioning & messaging, customer innovation and sales strategies to leading the complex supply chain for a new launch.
Not only is she broadly skilled and highly creative, she consistently goes above and beyond to help achieve our goals. I always enjoy working with Julie and have the utmost confidence that things will be ‘done right’. She contributes quickly to the team, builds great relationships and can work with lean resources. I highly recommend Julie for any marketing and general management needs.”
Cira Forbes, Sr Marketing Director Brands & Innovation, March 2018
“Julie’s Marketing Leadership and Plans led to a doubling of sales in the grocery channel over 3 years. Julie helped us strengthen our position in two new business channels (Grocery and Club Stores) for a newly acquired coffee brand. Julie applied her foundation and best practices from CPG, including messaging and packaging improvements which drove increased trial, frequency and velocity.
We rely on Julie’s insightful analyses and recommendations as we build our annual plans. She is also our numbers guru on the team, and has established ROI metrics and critical analyses to guide improved decision making.”
Manuela Mishler, Marketing Director at Luna Gourmet Coffee & Tea Company, March 2018
“Julie is the strongest Marketing person that I have worked with in my career. I hold Julie in the highest regard as a business leader, her skills on par with Presidents of billion dollar divisions of food companies. Her insight, consumer knowledge and passion for creative solutions to grow businesses is absolutely one of the best. Having worked at Frito-Lay, Hunt-Wesson (Con-Agra), Chef America, Nabisco, Kraft and Pepperidge Farm (Campbell’s), I have worked with many high powered insightful leaders and I would include Julie with any of them. Julie was an excellent partner on a business team, hired a good team to work for her, managed up well to a very difficult boss and was an inspirational leader for the organization. I would gladly recommend her for and business leadership position.”
David Smith, Vice President R&D , Chef America
“Julie is someone that is always thinking about new ideas, better procedures, interesting contacts etc. Julie not only advised us during our start up on marketing our brand but has introduced us to our Master Broker that we have hired for our national sales roll out. Julie thinks on her feet and always has our best interests in her advice. She is quick to answer when we give her questions and thorough with every project. Her passion is contagious and a pleasure to work alongside. Did I mention she is the smartest business person I have ever encountered?”
Teri Valentine, owner, The Perfect Bite Company
“Julie is a marketing tour de force. I have worked with her several times over the past eight years. Her knowledge, skill, creativity, and passion is unsurpassed and highly contagious. If you are at a strategic crossroads – you need her on your team!”
Paul Kraft, Marketing Manager, Starbucks International
“Julie is a brilliant innovator and entrepreneur who brings creativity and passion to her strategic endeavors. In her role at Chef America, she consistently delivered out of the box solutions against aggressive marketing goals and objectives. She is a leader who cares deeply about her work, her people, and the success of the organization. Her strategic marketing capabilities are outstanding — and is perhaps amongst the best. I highly recommend Julie!”
Annmarie Neal, Sr. Consultant RHR; now VP of Talent Management & Development, Cisco Systems
“Julie is truly an exceptional marketing executive. Her individualized approach to understanding the consumer’s wants, needs and fears puts her in a unique position to drive consumer awareness while energizing them to buy increasingly more of our products. Her knowledge of multiple aspects of the business give her the ability to look for and create solutions that are both financially sound, and consumer relevant. Working with Julie as CFO for both Chef American and Ruiz Food Products, I have a great appreciation for her as a business partner who will quickly “roll up her sleeves” to find the best way to drive value growth in any business. Her personal energy, positive attitude and ability to apply herself to new and unique businesses are just several of the reasons that I will recommend her to any executive or company looking for exceptional business results.”
Glenn C. Lee – Chief Financial Officer, Chef America and Nestle Prepared Foods Company
“Julie and I worked together at Mrs.Fields Concepts where I was SVP Operations. Julie is one of the most passionate brand leaders I’ve worked with. We were in synch on growth goals and retail strategies. She led the marketing efforts for a full suite of 6 brand concepts, tailoring marketing programs to build each brand. She effectively generated excitement for the brands and their potential to the sales leaders. She recommended and led new brand building strategies, especially for the Mrs. Fields brand, for improved consumer retail communications, local marketing program development, new licensing opportunities. Across all of these responsibilities, she regularly offered new creative solutions to our business challenges and brought a fresh perspective to the business. I would welcome the opportunity to work with Julie again and recommend her highly.”
Pat Knotts, SVP Operations Mrs. Fields Concepts
“We are a design firm that specializes in natural and organic food products. We have worked with Julie on many projects over the past 8 years and she is always our “go to” person when it comes to brand innovation. Whether a new brand from the ground up or an existing brand that needs a jumpstart, Julie always delivers fresh ideas and positive energy.
For our more recent successful brand “start”, Julie was instrumental in developing the perfect “go to market” strategy. Julie’s motivational moderating lead all the way by implementing:
A. The right mix of internal shareholders and expert external participants who offered insightful and useful information to build the brand.
B. Pre-meeting homework to engage participants on key issues. Timely post-meeting summaries, plans and implications.
C. Moderated key meetings and kept the participants focused and engaged.
D. High energy and highly inspirational meetings.
We always look forward to working with Julie and her enthusiastic, positive, consensus building approach to brand building.”
Ron Wilkinson, Principal, NishWilk Design
