Julie McDonald is a film executive and writer who has been capturing profound and less profound life lessons, stories and generally earning the wisdom that accompanies certain Phases of Life, while surrounded by vibrant friends and family for 54 years.

Born in 1961 to a hybrid Italian Scottish family, she has criss- crossed the globe multiple times in her work as an animation production and voice over recording expert, digital media licensing and distribution specialist, student of French Literature and general lover of food and culture.

Julie's focus on the wellness of children and families and her dedication to the education and advancement of women and girls has led her to speak at conferences / educational institutions in California and New York.  She has a BA in Literature from UC San Diego and an MBA in Finance from Mills College / Lokey Graduate School of Business.

Professionally, Julie has been building successful digital animation enterprises for over 20 years.    She is an executive level leader for companies such as IBM, Zoetrope, Pixar, PDI, DreamWorks and Viz Media, managing budgets, costs, talent, recording, animation, localization, disc authoring, digital media launches, post-production,  licensing, and contributing to acquisitions deal structures.
 
Julie started in film after working on a high resolution graphical imaging project for University College London (NASA/AMES) in the Department of Physics.    Upon returning to the US she was recruited to Francis Ford Coppola's post production team at American Zoetrope to manage the digital editorial mix on "The Secret Garden"​ as part of the Electronic Cinema team.   From there, she was recruited to join the creative geniuses at Pixar Animation Studios, where she remained for 10 years, mapping out digital editorial and laser filming, releasing the first digitally animated film, "Toy Story"​ as well as "Finding Nemo"​, "Geri's Game"​ &  "Monsters, Inc."​  Before going back to school for her MBA (Finance), she helped launch Reel Link Films, a social action independent doc company: "Race to Nowhere", to elevate the national discussion around education and teen stress.
 
Recently, as Director of Animation Production, she led the animation team at Viz Media in a turn around to help bring the firm profitable, driving costs down to deliver on margins while executing the launch of many hundreds of animé episodes on Hulu, CRACKLE, Netflix and XBox, as well as releasing over 50 multi-disc DVDs and BDs per year, and negotiating ADR in Latin America.  Julie currently consults for Guidepoint Global aligning capital with opportunity and is a strategic consultant to XVIVO Scientific Animation, Cambridge and Ants Animation Studios, China.
 
www.IMDB.com  Julie M. McDonald