Crunchmoms wasn’t born from a strategy deck. It was born from a reckoning. For Julie Nguyen, the turning point didn’t arrive in a boardroom or during a quarterly review. It unfolded in the quiet, complicated space between ambition and motherhood, a space many women inhabit but rarely give themselves permission to name.
“My journey didn’t start with a business plan,” she says. “It started with a feeling. A feeling of ambition. A feeling of guilt. A feeling of wanting more for myself.”
On paper, Julie had built the kind of career that signals success. As a global innovation and marketing leader within a multinational engineering firm, she held senior roles spanning digital transformation, strategy, and communications. She led the industry’s first smart city programme across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, shaping future systems at scale.
Then she became a mother, and motherhood didn’t diminish her ambition but sharpened it. It forced her to examine identity, success, and the invisible pressures women carry in professional spaces. And as she navigated that shift, she began noticing something that unsettled her.
“Incredibly talented women were stepping back from careers they loved,” she explains. “Not because they lacked capability, but because they lacked flexibility, support, community, and confidence.”
That became her inflection point: “The issue wasn’t talent: the issue was the ecosystem.”
Women, she realised, were being asked to remain endlessly resilient inside systems that were never designed with them in mind.
Rather than accepting that reality, Julie chose to build something different. Crunchmoms emerged not simply as a networking group, but as a platform for structural change, designed to keep women active in the workforce.
“Crunchmoms is the network where women discover their purpose,” she says. “Because when a woman is rooted in purpose, she creates lasting impact at home, at work, and in the world.”
Julie’s instinct to build is rooted in her upbringing. Raised by immigrant parents from Vietnam and growing up in Austin, Texas, she learned early that resilience and adaptability weren’t optional; they were survival skills.
“It gave me grit, discipline, agility, and a strong sense of authenticity,” she reflects. “My weird quirkiness and personality are part of how I lead. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Her leadership philosophy is grounded in clarity rather than approval. She says: “My business mantra is simple: know your values, protect your energy, build your own path.”
When anchored in values, she believes, decisions become simpler. “You don’t get pulled into rooms that look impressive but feel misaligned,” Julie remarks. “Your values become your filter for people, projects, and growth.”
She believes integrity is non-negotiable, community is a competitive advantage, wealth and ambition should be normalised for women, and leadership can hold both strength and softness. Julie sees community not as a social accessory, but as infrastructure.
“We’re more digitally connected than ever,” she says, “yet people feel more isolated. We need spaces where women feel seen and supported.”
When women are supported emotionally, professionally, and financially, they make braver decisions. They negotiate differently. They invest differently. They lead differently.
“When you support a woman, you’re supporting an entire ecosystem around her,” Julie emphasises.
For Julie, this is not abstract theory. It is generational work.
Julie is clear-eyed about the structural challenges that remain. In her view, the most critical issue facing women today is access.
“Access to opportunity. Access to networks. Access to mentorship. Access to capital,” she says. “At work and at home.”
Without proximity to opportunity, potential remains dormant, and Crunchmoms exists to widen those doors. Increasingly, she is energised by the financial dimension of empowerment. “I’ve learned that every woman needs a strong relationship with herself and with money,” she explains. “Running a business is different from earning in corporate. It’s not just income. It’s ownership. It’s understanding the impact of every decision.”
What excites her most about the future is helping women build stronger relationships with wealth and investments, and watching how that shift shapes their children’s understanding of money, confidence, and independence. “There’s so much work to be done,” she says. “But the ripple effect is enormous.”
One of her proudest moments came early: hosting the first Crunchmoms Summit while caring for a new-born. “It was a declaration,” she reflects. “That ambition and motherhood are not mutually exclusive. They’re mutually reinforcing.”
The summit has grown year after year and from strength to strength. But for Julie, success isn’t measured by scale alone. “Success is looking back one, two, four years from now and feeling so proud of how far we’ve come, of the team, the community, and the women stepping into leadership,” she explains.
“I genuinely believe the future is community,” she says. In the next decade, she sees networks becoming more intentional, curated, and purpose-driven; not just social spaces, but engines for learning, wealth-building, and leadership. “My role is to create and nurture those communities,” she explains. “To make sure women aren’t just keeping up with change but shaping the future together.”
Looking back, the advice she would give herself is simple: know your worth and trust your gut.
“I spent too much time second-guessing myself,” she admits. “Confidence and clarity about your value are non-negotiable.”
And if she were given a billboard, her message would be simple: “Be kind.” It may sound simple, but for Julie, leadership can hold both strength and softness. “Kindness is the foundation of trust, and the quiet force that allows ecosystems to thrive.”
Through Crunchmoms, she isn’t merely convening women for conversation: she’s building an enduring framework that ensures women aren’t simply adapting to change as the world evolves. They’re shaping it.
