Julie Garland Mclellan

From engineer to consultant in the boardrooms of important multinational companies and becoming a point of reference for directors and businessmen all over the world.

You never know what life can bring, or at least Julie Garland McLellan didn’t know that this would be her future when she finished her studies in Civil Engineering at the University of London. (She’s British and Australian.)

Her passion –or “addiction” as she puts it– for board rooms came after working for several years as an engineer and then going on to direct the Madrid office of a British consulting firm. It was then that she decided to get more training in company management and administration through an MBA at IE, and went on to assume a position of greater responsibility at BHP, a large international mining company of Australian origin. That was a real eye-opener: In closer contact with the board, she discovered the role of the Directors and enjoyed more than ever before the chance to make team decisions. She had just found what would be, starting then, her great passion.

With all that experience behind her, the Australian Institute of Company Directors invited her to give some courses on the subject. They were so successful that she soon began to receive many offers to be part of the boards of non-profit organizations and others in the government sector…She realized that there was a need to learn more, study new cases, and apply good practices on the boards of directors of these organizations. And that’s how Julie became a speaker, consultant and author of several books, in addition to a newsletter, The Director’s Dilemma, that is read by in 33 different countries. “The newsletter is an amusing way of learning and sharing what I am learning while I work with the boards,” she says.

After 16 years in the profession, she continues to be surprised by the interest aroused by the directors’ profession, because “it is usually something confidential and many people are not aware that there is a branch of consultancy dedicated to it,” says Julie. That’s why she is especially excited to have been nominated for the EPIC Awards. Since her nomination, she says, she hasn’t stopped smiling, which is a problem because, she observes with a laugh, a consultant is expected to put across a serious, professional image. In addition, it’s a special honor to be in the Women Inspiring Women category at a time when the presence of women on boards of directors is under-represented, in spite of the fact that there are professional women who are very well prepared to occupy positions of responsibility. Even so, luckily “the trend is changing and in the future it won’t be anything exceptional for women to be part of the boards or to work in any other place.”

Her next challenges? To finish writing what will be her sixth book and to continue to contribute to the success of the companies she advises. And after that, who knows.