Our story….
Our Story
In early 2020, with a track record of successfully building consulting practices nationally and internationally, Julie struck out to pursue a long held dream of hanging out her own shingle. That seemed like a great idea in January. By March, it seemed like a much less great idea. To be a small cork bobbing in a sea of competition at the start of a world-closing pandemic was unnerving … on a good day. But the decision to transform had been made and, as it is with most business transformations, there was no going back. In the midst of all the uncertainty, really honest conversations happened with highly respected colleagues. Long-valued clients reached out for thought partnership and to sound out their ideas for navigating through the storm. New partnerships were built with boutique consultancies facing similar challenges. Good things happened. When everything was uncertain, we leaned in hard to our foundations: authentic relationships, deep listening, insatiable curiosity for big, gnarly business problems, and good old fashioned elbow grease. And so, almost miraculously, and with a heaping helping of gratitude, here we are.
Meet Julie
Julie Rey is the Founder of Green Side Consulting. With deep expertise and a down-to-earth style, Julie helps teams cut through complexity and bring their ideas to life. Combining strategy, process logic, people savvy, and common sense, she’s led initiatives for businesses around the world. Her experience spans high tech, wireless, energy, banking, healthcare, insurance, distribution, and heavy industry. Whether she is working up, down or across the organizational chart, with large groups or small teams, Julie connects people and listens deeply. Her curiosity and insights set the conditions for forward motion, and her good humor brings a refreshing dose of fun to the work. As a result, her leadership has streamlined processes — significantly improving client profitability, performance, customer experience, sales, and growth.
When she’s not working with clients and building teams, Julie spends her time supporting jazz education in public schools, doing pro bono work with women-owned sole proprietorships, cooking Foods of the World with her treasured family (ask her about it - it’s a thing), and picking out old-timey tunes on her little ukulele. With so much going on, it’s no wonder she loves coffee more than any person should.
To us, it’s not just a contract. It’s a personal promise.
As a small firm, we don’t have a team of executives to please, big targets to hit, or other external motivations to satisfy. We simply focus on the work, without a lot of distraction. What matters to you, matters to us. We know that our clients receive the best value when there is clear alignment between the business need, our collective strengths and the individual interests of our team members. Informally, we call this the plus + plus + plus model (+ for you, + for the team, + for the firm) and when we find it, we know the work is in our sweet spot.
If we believe can deliver unmatched value for you, we’ll tell you exactly why we think so, and we won’t be bashful. If we’re not the team for you, we’ll tell you that too. We will work hard to help you find the right fit for your needs, even if that means introducing you to another consulting firm. Ultimately what this means is that when we commit to a project, we commit to bringing your ideas to life with a team that is really excited about your success, and with the right experience to deliver results. Great people. Great value. Great fun. It’s what we’re about.
What’s in a name?
Julie grew up working in a family-owned retail garden center in California. Her dad, John Chiapelone, didn’t just sell plants. He offered customers a great deal of education about plant care, donated thousands of hours in service of his community, and over the course of 50 years, built the Burlingame Garden Center into a local institution. A side benefit of being his kid was having on-call access to someone with encyclopedic knowledge of horticulture. Julie once asked for advice on how to prune fruit trees, and her Dad replied by sending along a very helpful book entitled “How to Prune Fruit Trees”. Inside the book jacket, he wrote the following:
“Here’s to your new pruning book. Remember to be cautious when pruning because you can’t glue them back together. If you decide to plant a new tree, remember it goes green side up!”
With Green Side Consulting, Julie hopes to carry forward many of the lessons she learned early on by watching her Dad: work hard, care for your customers, invest in your community, keep your advice simple and pragmatic, and always tack on a side order of fun.