The word no is not a stop sign, it's a fork in the road.
Julie Hirsch is an award-winning social entrepreneur and innovator, recognised as Telstra’s Victorian Business Woman of the Year and named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.
A dynamic and uplifting speaker, Julie is passionate about sharing her experience-led knowledge of how innovation, social impact, and entrepreneurial excellence can be embedded into commercial, educational, and government institutions.
Julie's thought leadership and inspiring entrepreneurial journey have been featured in publications such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Herald Sun.
Current Work
Co-Founder, Eloments Vitamin Teas: The world’s first natural vitamin tea, a patented innovation securing shelf space in 1500 stores within a year of launch, raising Series A funding to become part of the only 2.7% of equity capital that goes to female founders.
Company Director: Julie has served four terms on the non-profit Board of Directors for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, including three terms as Board Secretary. She also helped assemble and sits on the Board of Directors for the company she co-founded, Eloments Vitamin Teas.
Entrepreneur in Residence, AGL Energy: Cofounded ‘Electrify Now’ - AGL’s home electrification solution centre powered by advanced analytics (AI) to create a pathway for electrification in the home. An Australian-first by energy retailers that utilises smart meter data to understand customer usage and provide a suite of personalised options.
Monash Innovation Guarantee Partner: Julie is currently an industry partner with the 400 student, cross-disciplinary Monash Innovation Guarantee.
Awards & Recognitions
2023 Most Innovative Companies Award, Finalist for Electrify Now, Australian Financial Review
2021 Most Innovative Company, Victoria; Kochie’s Business Builders
2020 Telstra Business Woman of the Year and the Telstra Emerging Leader of the Year, VIC
2020 Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 List
2019 Melbourne Young Entrepreneur of the Year - Food and Beverage; Business News Australia
Talking Points
Women in Business: Turning Differences into your Unique Advantage
What if the ‘disadvantages’ that others see in us, are actually our secret weapons in business?Women in Business: Turning Differences into your Unique Advantage
This inspiring session will challenge conventional notions of what makes an advantage or disadvantage.
As a female founder with multiple first-of-their-kind ventures - spanning small business to corporate innovation, consumer products to AI technology - Julie is passionate about sharing her experience-led learnings of how to reframe our unique differences to unlock our greatest strengths.
Key takeaways:
- Breaking through gender barriers: learn firsthand strategies from Julie’s journey as she navigated unconscious bias in startup and corporate innovation
- Embracing your authentic power: discover research-backed approaches to find strength in your authenticity, even in environments where you may feel like an outlier
- Finding your unfair advantage: debunking our differences as “disadvantages”, and how you can use your own unique experience to unlock insights as the stepping stones to success
Creating Persistent and Radical Innovation
As Co-Founder of the world's first 100% natural vitamin team, Julie created a product that was described by Telstra's HR Group Executive as having the potential to disrupt a whole category'.Creating Persistent and Radical Innovation
Beyond product innovation, Julie will discuss how persistent and radical innovation is possible at every level of business and can lead to opportunities for profit and purpose, as well as empowering staff outside the C-Suite.
Julie's own businesses have proved by creating an ethical supply chain and patent-pending manufacturing process that are the backbone of their product's success.
Key Takeaways:
- Creating a culture that fails forward (or the Duvet policy)
- Innovative thinking at every level of business
- Building the confidence to become a challenger
Purpose and Resilience in the Age of Disruption
The decade between 2020-2030 has been dubbed the “Age of Disruption,” presenting not just business challenges, but also stress and uncertainty for each of us as individuals.Purpose and Resilience in the Age of Disruption
As more and more disruption wipes away the status quo, more and more space for opportunity is created - if we can master the resilience mindset needed in a rapidly changing world.
Julie is an expert in finding opportunities within disrupted systems, and has spent her career driving innovative solutions in sectors facing complex change - from agriculture and consumer goods to the energy transition.
Key takeaways:
- Purpose and vision: learn simple tools to harness storytelling and your own compelling “why” to improve motivation and team cohesion
- Resilience: discover research-backed approaches to step into your authentic power, even in the midst of the most profound disruptions
- Breaking away from business as usual: identifying the mental barriers keeping us in our current ways of working, and the mindset strategies to change from disrupted to disruptor
Accelerate Growth: Leadership & courageous cultures
Thriving in uncertainty, a willingness to fail, nimble decision making, bold and disruptive thinking - the trademarks of a successful entrepreneur.Accelerate Growth: Leadership & courageous cultures
INTRAPRENEURSHIP is the art of combining entrepreneurial excellence with the scale and structure of an established organisation, accelerating growth and innovation exponentially.
Key takeaways include:
- Strategies to move from a “what is” to a “what if” mentality, allowing teams and individuals to live in a growth mindset
- Increase team effectiveness by failing fast and failing safely through experimentation, identifying barriers holding back current ways of working
- For People Leaders and Governance: building space for others to undertake their most courageous work, fostering a powerful environment for staff and leaders to make positive change within the remit of their role.
Wish your event had more balloons and legos? This topic can be delivered as a traditional keynote or using experiential techniques to move beyond learning and bring to life behaviour change.
Igniting Innovation for a Sustainable Tomorrow
What if we could extract practical strategies from nature’s 4 billion years of innovation? Igniting Innovation for a Sustainable Tomorrow
Nature is the original innovator - forever iterating its designs to create new inventions that are life-affirming and balanced.
As each of us, individually and through our workplaces, grapples with the impacts we’re seeing from a changing climate, turning back to the practical inspiration that nature provides will help us create solutions for a more sustainable world.
A female founder with three ventures directly supporting climate resilience - from sustainable farming in developing countries to household emissions in Australia’s suburbs - Julie is passionate about sharing her experience-led learnings of how innovation can pivot our globe’s trajectory to a safe climate future.
This keynote has been crafted specially to inspire audiences on the 2024 UN World Environment Day theme of accelerating restoration and resilience.
Your audience will enjoy an interactive and motivating session that brings to life:
- inspiring stories of how nature innovates and how we can harness the inspiration all around us to spark trailblazing solutions for a more sustainable tomorrow
- how your diverse background and experiences can provide the powerful insights needed for the next world-changing innovation
- research-backed strategies to overcome climate burnout by an entrepreneur who has maintained her passion for practical sustainability working with leading environment-NGOs and co-founding a Climate Pledge business.
Tea Tasting Experience
Enjoy a fun, interactive and inspiring tea tasting while Julie shares the history and rituals of tea, her own business stories of sourcing the cuppa in your hands, and strategies to find energy and focus amid the disruption and excitement of your personal growth journey.Tea Tasting Experience
Experiment with aromas, textures and flavours and across a variety of small-batch Fairtrade teas while hearing a business journey that spans from the tea gardens of Sri Lanka to major supermarkets around the world.
Embrace the power each of us has with every dollar we spend to accelerate equality through economic empowerment, with stories of partnering with Fairtrade women farmers in developing countries.
How it works:
This guided tasting can be customised based on venue and audience size. All teas will be provided, including aroma bowls. For all of the following group sizes, a mug for each attendee and access to hot water are needed.
- PLENARY SPACE: a tea station will be set up with pre-brewed pots of unique tea varietals. Julie is experienced at coordinating participants to fill their samples by row, so as not to interrupt the flow of content. Requirements include: a small table near seating for thermoses
- CABARET TABLES: as per plenary, or 2 teapots per table. All pots can be filled brewed prior to the tasting, as temperature is an interesting element to play with alongside flavour
- SMALL GROUP: Adapted to any space and suitable for up to 20 attendees, a small group guided tasting is perfect for team building, diving deeper into tea and spices
- A complimentary sample of 4 Fairtrade teas will be included for each attendee to continue their tea tasting journey at home.
What Clients Say:
“The tea tasting event was the absolute highlight! Not only was it a resounding success, but it provided an interactive and intimate experience.”
Video
Debunking IQ in 60 seconds | Julie Hirsch | TEDxMelbourneHighSchool
Julie Hirsh has overcome diverse challenges in her various business endeavours. In her talk, she delves into the dissonance between academic intelligence and entrepreneurial success. Julie is an award-winning entrepreneur who has been called an innovator, disruptor and challenger." As the Cofounder of the world's first all-natural vitamin tea, she created an overnight success years in the making, securing shelf space in 2000 stores within a year of launch. She then became part of the only 2.7% of venture capital funding that went to female founders in 2019 by closing a Series A investment round in only 8 days, and did all of this before the age of 30. In 2020 she was recognised as Telstra's Victorian Business Woman of the Year, and was named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. She is a passionate advocate for building a world where every decision is made with care, without bias, and with responsibility to the dreams of others.Julie Hirsch on Failure | Saxton Speakers
Julie Hirsch shares powerful insights on the role of failure in innovation, challenging entrepreneurs and leaders to embrace setbacks as growth opportunities. She reveals her team’s unique “Doona policy” for handling setbacks and highlights the transformational impact of reframing failure. With practical tools like fear mapping and outward connection, Julie illustrates how accepting and learning from mistakes can lead to meaningful progress and long-lasting change. Julie is a Speaker who doesn’t just focus on success but offers actionable strategies to navigate and leverage failure, fostering resilience and innovation.Breaking New Ground: Why Innovation Isn’t Easy | Julie Hirsch | Saxton Speakers
In this talk, Julie Hirsch dives into the highs and hurdles of innovation, illustrating her journey from initial concept to groundbreaking success. Julie, co-founder of Eloments Vitamin Tea, shares insights into Australia's urgent shift toward Net Zero, exploring her innovative pilot program, "Electrify Now," which helps households reduce energy costs and carbon emissions with AI-driven recommendations. She sheds light on the challenges of pioneering new ideas, such as facing "no" as a redirection rather than a roadblock and enduring two years of rigorous R&D to create a patented, market-ready product. Her story reaches new heights with rapid market acceptance and a successful series A funding round, highlighting Julie's resilience and impact as a trailblazing female founder.Audio
Julie gave us some really important and valuable messaging on the importance of having a strong business purpose, especially if you truly want to make a difference. It's truly inspiring to h ... keep reading Mars Australia
Julie was a wonderful presenter, she was knowledgeable, passionate and opened our students' eyes to the realities of entrepreneurship. The students were highly engaged and enjoyed the presentation. Always the worry when bringing guest speakers into the school is that students wont ask any questions; the students peppered Julie with questions which she handled with ease. We would thoroughly recommend Julie as a presenter.
On behalf of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, I would like to thank you for officiating as our Master of Ceremonies at the 2022 Queensland AgriFutures Rural Women's Award (RWA). You delivered an engaging ceremony to a diverse crowd with skill and professionalism. Your personal accomplishments in leading a business that is focused on making a positive community impact exemplifies the spirit of the RWA, and I appreciate your sharing your success story with the finalists and attendees.
Julie Hirsch was a professional, inspiring and charismatic speaker. She was flexible and able to adapt her content easily. She engaged a C-Level audience, answered complex questions and maintained professionalism throughout the day.
What really impacted me was that she treated it like a conversation so I was more willing to listen and it wasn't boring. I was surprised to see the lengths and hardships she went through in creating her business. A major takeaway is to be resilient and to not give up. After hearing her, I know that if you ever hear 'no' that isn't a stop or end to something, just an opportunity to create a different pathway for yourself.
Julie was absolutely fantastic and covered many critical aspects of entrepreneurship from ideation to development to commercialization of product and services in a very interesting way. I found her a knowledgeable, passionate young entrepreneur with so much energy and positivity.
We had the privilege of hosting award winning entrepreneur, innovator and Cofounder of Eloments natural vitamin tea and Mullin Mulling Spices, Julie Hirsch. Julie was so insightful and inspiring about how we can crack the code for gender equity. By combining innovative thinking and an entrepreneurial mindset we can all build the innovations that are essential in achieving a more gender equal future.
Julie's wealth of knowledge in [innovation] was evident, and she inspired the young people in the room with examples from her lived experience. We have had very good feedback from our students about the session and would love to have her back for our future iterations.
As a facilitator and presenter for a Women's Retreat attended by high profile entrepreneurs, I could not rate Julie's presentation, preparation and commitment more highly. The content and training she delivered was powerful, informative and impactful. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her for other engagements. She is fantastic! Our attendees all rated her 10/10.
Julie was a guest speaker at the Digital Innovation Futures Festival. She brought incredible energy, prose and professionalism. Her deep industry knowledge and obvious passion for what she does shone through and inspired the audience. I’d highly recommend her for future events.
Julie joined our panel on advancing gender equity and fulfilling personal and professional aspirations. Working with her was an absolute pleasure! Julie is truly professional, and such an inspiration. I thoroughly enjoyed gaining insights from her, and our audience benefited greatly from her incredible perspective. Without a doubt, the panel wouldn't have been as impactful without her.
Julie was a huge hit at our event. She was lively, entertaining, genuine and passionate which made her a hugely engaging keynote speaker. She inspired a lot of women (and men) in the room for this IWD event! Her take away messages we can all apply to our work and life.
The conference was absolutely fantastic, ALGWA were very happy, and the conferees enjoyed the varied speakers we had curated. Julie Hirsch was outstanding and an absolute pleasure to work with. Her workshop was very motivating. Please pass on our thanks.
