About Julia

From established household names to mission-driven nonprofits, Julia has built her career around identifying opportunities, challenging conventional thinking, and turning complex business problems into practical strategies for growth.

Personal & Professional Background | Marketing Leadership & Results

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PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

Julia Fitzgerald is a graduate of Ohio State University and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where she currently serves on the Chicago Alumni Board.

Over the course of her career, Julia has held executive marketing leadership positions at midsize and large organizations, including serving as Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Digital Engagement Officer. She's led brand transformations, developed marketing strategies, built teams, and helped organizations connect with customers and grow their businesses.

Drawing on that experience, Julia has also become an author and speaker. She's written Midsize: The Truths and Strategies of Marketing in Midsize Firms and Gen X: The X Factor for Growth, and regularly shares her expertise through guest lectures, speaking engagements, and media appearances.

Throughout her professional and personal life, three principles have become central to Julia's outlook: Resilience. Reinvention. Growth. Having experienced career disruption from both sides of the table, she understands that even experienced leaders face unexpected challenges and difficult transitions. Those experiences have shaped her belief in preparing for change, recognizing opportunities to reinvent, and continuing to grow through uncertainty.

Outside of work, Julia enjoys running, pickleball, and putting together puzzles. She loves to travel with her husband, John- especially to visit her two children in California.

MARKETING LEADERSHIP & RESULTS

Julia’s marketing success speak for themselves. Scroll down to see how Julia has brought her mindset of resilience, reinvention, and growth to different organizations and goals.

BRAND REFRESH, DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, AND CONTENT STRATEGY

AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION

Optimizing Brand, Content, and Digital Advertising to Serve the Mission.

Challenge: To advance its mission of improving lung health and effectively engage donors, the American Lung Association (ALA) needed to undertake a comprehensive brand refresh and digital transformation. This effort required modernizing both its infrastructure and content to better connect with today’s audiences. As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, the urgency for clear, authoritative messaging intensified. People turned to ALA for trusted guidance, requiring the organization to respond with speed, accuracy, and confidence.

Strategy: Under Julia’s leadership, ALA executed a timely brand refresh, transforming its 120-year-old identity with a modern visual design and tone that reflected its mission. The redesigned Lung.org provided an optimized, user-centric experience with an intuitive CMS, enabling efficient content updates and fact-based communication about COVID-19. Julia spearheaded the transition to virtual engagement, including a high-profile telethon featuring Queen Latifah and other celebrities, which raised critical funds during the pandemic. Additionally, ALA implemented Salesforce Marketing Cloud to enhance constituent communications through automated, personalized outreach. Recognizing the growing importance of digital storytelling, Julia expanded the digital and content team to elevate ALA’s narrative and drive fundraising efforts.

Results: The telethon and other digital campaigns fueled a 27% year-over-year increase in digital fundraising revenue, with email channel revenue rising by 29%. ALA solidified its position as a trusted resource for lung health, delivering vital information and support when it was needed most.

Spreading Vital Messaging Through Quality Content

To deliver high quality content Julia partnered with agencies and developed in-house talent to deliver high impact messaging for Covid Vaccines, Lung Cancer Screening, and Youth Vaping campaigns. The PSAs contributed to the youth vaping drop from 27% in 2019 to 8% in 2024.  That’s putting marketing to good use.

THERMOS

MODERNIZING A CLASSIC BRAND

Modernizing the Brand and Introducing E-Commerce

Challenge: Thermos, a heritage brand with a storied past, faced the critical need to modernize its approach to e-commerce and digital marketing to stay competitive in an increasingly online marketplace.

Strategy: Julia revitalized Thermos’s digital presence by developing dynamic content tailored to diverse customer segments, including kids, commuters, athletes, and campers. She led a comprehensive website overhaul, enhancing its visual appeal and functionality while weaving in the brand's rich history through curated displays of legacy products. To complement the refreshed branding, Julia introduced a seamless e-commerce platform, enabling direct-to-consumer sales and driving engagement with contemporary audiences.

Results: The initiative delivered a significant boost in website traffic and e-commerce revenue, strengthened Thermos’s brand positioning, and modernized its digital footprint. Additionally, the strategy helped clear obsolete inventory through targeted online promotions.

AZEK Building Products

BRAND BUILDING WITH CONSUMERS & TRADE

Building AZEK Building Products' Brand

Challenge:  AZEK acquired TimberTech and although they were both premium brands in engineered decking, siding, and trim, they were largely unknown to consumers and underutilized versus wood by contractors and trade partners.  

Strategy: As CMO, Julia created new brand architecture that simplified the company's go to market approach and allowed for more effective marketing investment.  She then launched a multi channel decking campaign to drive awareness with consumers and consideration with the trade.  She created the "100% Smarter Than Wood" message that identified the largest growth opportunity for the brand - wood deck replacement.  Then she used HGTV as a cost effective TV driver and coordinated print, digital, social, and trade marketing to get the brand name recognized and associated with its core  competency -  a premium wood replacement.

Results: HGTV placements gained over 8MM views accelerated web traffic. Overall adjustments increased AZEK awareness from 19% to 27%, increased site traffic 52% YOY, and increased contractor leads by 128% YOY.  Sales increased 10% in 2017.   

Connecting with AZEK's Overlooked Customer

Challenge:  In 2016 AZEK wanted to regionally launch a new siding product and be viewed as a premium brand for multiple high performance home exterior products.   Like most of the industry, AZEK's advertising had been exclusively male focused. As an added marketing challenge, there were no homes yet built with the new AZEK siding, so traditional photography was not an option.

Strategy: Through interviews with contractors and dealers Julia uncovered a key insight -  the female head of household was the primary influencer of color, product, and brand that went into her outdoor living space and home exterior. Julia worked with the agency to launch a breakthrough campaign that influenced women with a "house purse" that highlighted AZEK's siding & other products.  These striking images broke through the traditional consumer facing building products messaging in print, social, digital, and PR.  Even the trade asked for the campaign for the postcards and door hanger activations that works on local contractor level.

Results: AZEK sales grew 15% in 2016, 20 key new dealers took on the AZEK products, AZEK was recognized as #1 Brand by the Builder Magazine 2016 Brand Builder study.  

SYLVAN LEARNING

POSITIONING FOR GROWTH

Expanding A Heritage Brand To Drive New Business.

Challenge: Sylvan Learning was experiencing declining sales in an increasingly competitive market.  Its remedial tutoring focus was narrow, its brand presentation was out dated and it did not have a digital outreach strategy.

Strategy: Julia identified that Sylvan's  biggest growth opportunity was expanding its positioning from a remedial tutoring company to an education company.  Julia established the new STEM brand, Sylvan Edge, for robotics and coding, and the Sylvan Prep brand for kids preparing for the ACTs and SATS.    The repositioning expanded Sylvan's target market and revenue potential dramatically.  Enlisting Bill Nye as a key influencer provided national messaging and allowed the Sylvan Franchisees to focus on marketing Sylvan Edge in their local territories.

Results: Over 480 franchisees adopted and sold the Sylvan Edge Program, Declining sales stabilized and returned to single digit growth, Sylvan's social presence increased by 120%, and the leads to Franchisees increased by 20%.  Company momentum followed suit.

KMART

HOLIDAY TOYS MEET DIGITAL CONTENT

Making Kmart A Holiday Toy Destination - Fab 15

Challenge: Moms weren't shopping Kmart for holiday because they did not think they could find the hot toys their kids wanted there.  

Strategy: Julia created the Kmart Fab 15 hot toy list and had Rico Rodriguez from Modern Family introduce the list through videos, social media, a toy catalog, an event in Times Square and in print.  We created a kmart.com/Fab15 site where we housed fun videos that revealed the toys, hosted a sweepstake,  and promoted e-commerce.  Then Julia took the Fab 15 to completely unexpected places for online toy shopping anywhere there was dwell time - airports, bus stops, food courts.

Results - The campaign received over 400MM impressions, over 18MM views of the videos,  PR placements on the Ellen Show, Hollywood Access, and PerezHilton.com,  40% increase in Fab 15 sales, $35MM in toy Catalog sales, and new Kmart respect from the big toy makers.