Julie Roehm has never been content being "just" a marketing executive. She's ably worn many hats, including best athlete - a business term of endearment for an executive who can pinch hit, and skillfully at that - Automotive Hall of Fame honoree, chief storyteller, and chief experience officer. Roehm's reluctance to be defined comes as no surprise, given that the concept of transformation has been at the center of her professional life.
Roehm has transformed herself numerous times over the years. A communications chameleon, she's hopped from one vastly different industry to the next, including automotive, information technology, and retail. The only constant is the groundbreaking success she inspired at each company she's called home.
Julie Roehm began her career in the automotive industry shortly after earning her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. As brand manager of the newly minted Focus line at Ford Motor Company, she led a 24-month campaign that boosted sales among the under-35 demographic by 50%. A short film from the campaign even became a finalist at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001.
After helping grow Ford's revenue to an impressive $6 billion during her six year tenure, which ended in 2001, she took a job with DaimlerChrysler, an automotive company that was losing $6 billion. She was put in charge of the floundering Dodge brand, and during her five-year run there, she resurrected it into one of the most popular automobile brands in the U.S. Roehm was responsible for reintroducing the Hemi engine to Dodge trucks and rolling out the iconic "Grab life by the horns" campaign, which ushered in an unprecedented 142% revenue boost in under five years. Her success at DaimlerChrysler earned her the title of Marketer of the Year by BrandWeek in 2004 and induction into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2005. She continued as the director of marketing communications for Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge, where she managed a $2 billion budget and 2,200 employees.
After more than a decade, Julie Roehm left the automotive industry to found her own consultancy firm /Meta (long before Mark Zuckerberg's own brand transformation). At the helm of /Meta, Roehm worked with major brands like Sports Illustrated/Time, MediaLink, and Whirlpool, helping them discover new opportunities for transforming their revenue potential and understanding changing market trends of the tumultuous late '00s.
Roehm's many achievements afforded her the opportunity to bring her transformative approach to some of the world's most successful companies, which she did next by joining the executive team at SAP as chief storyteller - a role created precisely for her talents by then CEO, Bill McDermott. Roehm led a staff of 100 at SAP, helping the company change its image from that of an impersonal IT brand to a trusted adviser offering software solutions.
She next returned to the automotive industry to serve as chief marketing Officer and Chief Experience Officer for ABRA Auto Collision & Glass, a private equity backed collision repair company. During her short tenure there, she digitized the customer journey and increased repair conversions, driving $150 million in earnings. In just 18 months, her team completely modernized the archaic auto body shop customer experience, resulting in the sale of the company at a 6.7x return.
Even after 30 years of innovative work at some of the best-known brands around, Julie Roehm shows no sign of slowing down. She joined Party City in 2019 and helped the brand navigate the pandemic, transforming its digital strategy and improving its social media presence. Her work has led to an 80% increase in digital sales, and she's streamlined numerous operations to refocus the company's efforts on modern consumers.
Roehm has been recognized many times throughout her career as one of the most innovative minds in marketing. In addition to the aforementioned Marketer of the Year award, she was also named the Tri-State Diversity Council's Most Powerful and Influential Woman, and was among Brand Innovators' Top 50 Women in Brand Marketing, and Working Mother's Top 25 Women. She was awarded the Booth Distinguished Alumni Award by the University of Chicago and inducted into the Advertising Hall of Achievement. In 2022, she was honored as a Top 50 Marketer by OnCon Icon.
What's next for Julie Roehm? She is always looking for doors to new challenges and changes to open and then walks through them. She knows that there's nothing constant in the world of marketing. But there has been one constant in Julie Roehm's career: success.
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