Long Bio · 165 words

Julie Averill spent nearly three decades proving that culture isn't soft. It's the infrastructure that determines whether transformation succeeds or fails. She served eight years as Global CIO and EVP at lululemon during its period of rapid growth from $2B to $10B, building world-class teams across the U.S., Canada, China, and India. Before that, she was the first CIO in REI's history and held senior technology roles at Nordstrom. Today, through Gold Thread LLC, she advises boards, CEOs, and founders on transformation and the leadership it takes to pull it off, and serves on the boards of Gorilla Commerce and the University of Washington Foundation Board. Her debut book, Chief Impact Officer, is out now from 8080 Books / Simon & Schuster. A New York Times guest essayist and a regular contributor to TIME and Forbes, her writing and interviews have also appeared in Bloomberg, WWD, and NBC.