Soar (scn) Podcast

Mali Phonpadith interviews Julie Jakopic of iLeads Strategies. In high school Julie Jakopic was an actor, president of the world affairs club, and a nationally ranked synchronized swimmer. She’s never fit neatly in anyone’s box. Not because she didn’t fit in one, but because she couldn’t or wouldn’t pick just one box. As a kid, that often meant she didn’t feel like she belonged anywhere. As an adult, that desired to explore more than one box, has been a gift. She has lead organizations in the nonprofit, public, and corporate sectors, dealing in everything from cosmetics to energy efficiency to human services. She gets to bring the best of one sector to bear in another, and she understands the crazy things that are pervasive across them all. Over her career, she has been led by, and even been, the overwhelmed frantic executive; the controlling, people-pleasing, diva-martyr. It may get stuff done, but it is soul-killing for the team and the leader. For her, it created the need and the opportunity to look back