Julie McCann has spent 17 years helping organisations transform their culture, develop their leaders and turn strategy into reality. As founder and CEO of Masters in Minds Limited, she works with leadership teams, senior managers and frontline colleagues to ignite performance — and the results speak for themselves.
But Julie's own story is just as powerful as the work she does.
She left school at 16 with few qualifications, worked her way into corporate life, built her career from the ground up, and eventually took the leap to found her own business. Today, Masters in Minds has a team of eight full-time staff and 40 associates, and is growing a platform business that combines HR technology with bespoke learning and development content.
In this episode of Scale HER Up, Julie joins Brenda to talk about the realities of building a business, leading a team and keeping going when things get tough.
Strategy doesn't fail — execution does
One of the most important things Julie shared in this conversation is where she sees organisations come unstuck. It's rarely the strategy itself. It's the delivery.
"What we say is this isn't a training programme per se. What we're doing is collectively building the execution of the strategy so that you can achieve your strategic ambitions and goals — and then we join that all the way through the organisation."
Getting every person in the organisation to understand how their daily work connects back to the bigger picture is hard. It takes tenacity, focus and, as Julie puts it, a lot of humour to keep you going. But when it works, the results are measurable — uplifts in sales, productivity and engagement, alongside real behavioural change.
The ripple effect of great leadership
Julie is passionate about the impact that good leadership has — not just on business results, but on people's lives. Their confidence. Their careers. Their home lives.
"You don't know just how much of an impact you have on many people's lives when you are in a leadership position."
She described the idea of a wall where clients and participants could put their names — a physical record of everyone whose life had been changed through Masters in Minds' work. The ripple effect, she says, is huge. And it's why the Masters in Minds brand is built around that very image.
Resilience, failure and keeping going
Julie's advice to women thinking about starting or scaling a business is direct and honest: be prepared to fail, be prepared to work hard, and know your purpose.
"It takes much longer than you ever think. There are no overnight successes. They just sometimes look like that. But the hard yards are going on behind the scenes for many years."
She also talked about the importance of having a coach or mentor, a support network who can keep you real — whether you're riding high or feeling the weight of it all. And about not letting the media define how you feel about the market.
"If you just keep listening to the media, you wouldn't do anything."
Don't let age hold you back
Julie ended the conversation with a message close to her heart: age should never define what you can and can't do. She spoke about the wisdom that comes with experience, the conversations between generations that business needs more of, and the confidence that comes from simply showing up and adding value — regardless of the number on your birth certificate.
"Some of us take longer than others to bloom. And that's completely fine."
About Julie McCann
Julie McCann is the founder and CEO of Masters in Minds Limited, a leadership and organisational development business working with organisations across the UK. With a background in sales, marketing and general management at board level, Julie brings a practical, results-focused approach to leadership development. Masters in Minds works with executive teams, senior managers and frontline colleagues to help organisations execute their strategy, develop their culture and ignite performance.
