Q&A: Meet Julie Savage-Fournier

By Alanna Fairey

If there’s one thing Julie Savage-Fournier has mastered in her impressive life and career, it's been embracing the many contrasts in her life.

“I'm a geek who loves people, and I describe myself as a compassionate engineer,” according to Julie.  

Back in March, Julie was nominated for our International Women’s Day blog contest, and won the opportunity to have her story written and shared by Brand of a Leader. And what an amazing story she has.

Through Kaizen Radical, Julie provides executive coaching, Lean expertise and Engineering skill. She had also been an advisor and a manager for different Healthcare organizations in her earlier career.

When it comes to coaching, Julie specializes in continuous improvement and process improvement coaching, and has always believed that process improvement should not be the exclusive domain of experts.

“My mission is to democratize process improvement, empowering people to take control of their work conditions,” Julie explains. “By empowering individuals to address the small but significant frictions in their daily work, we can vastly improve their job satisfaction.”

I recently sat down with Julie to learn more about her impressive career, what wakes her up in the morning, and what she does when she’s not working. 

This conversation has been edited for clarity and concision.

AF: Why did you choose the field that you're currently in? How did you get to where you are today?

JSF: I am an industrial engineer with a master's in healthcare systems. Over the past 20 years, I have worked in the healthcare sector, specializing in process improvement. In 2019, I started my own business because I needed more freedom. My unique combination of being gifted, having dyslexia, and ADHD means I get bored easily and constantly seek new challenges. Changing jobs every two years within the same system was no longer fulfilling, so I decided to venture into entrepreneurship. Initially, my business focused on consulting projects that lasted several months. However, I am now transitioning towards training and coaching mandates, which are smaller in scope and offer more diversity in my work. An interesting aspect of my background is that my mother was an engineer. Growing up, I never realized it was uncommon for a woman to be an engineer because I had a role model right at home. I like to mention this because it highlights how my mother was a pioneer, paving the way for future generations. I'm incredibly proud of her achievements. My father was an entrepreneur and TV show producer, so I had strong examples of both engineering and entrepreneurship. Ultimately, I followed in their footsteps, becoming both an engineer and an entrepreneur, combining the best of both worlds.

AF: I love the idea that it shouldn't be special for women to be engineers; it should just be the norm. We need to move away from the notion that engineering is a male-dominated field and recognize that women can and should be engineers without it being seen as exceptional. Let's normalize women in engineering and stop treating it as a rarity.

JSF: That's also why I want to be visible as a woman entrepreneur and engineer. By being visible, we can normalize these roles and show young girls that they, too, can achieve the same. It's important for them to see someone like them succeeding, so they can believe in their own potential.

AF: I'm curious to hear about what challenges you faced and if there was anything you did to overcome them?

JSF: My husband is an engineer as well, and we both received our degrees at the same time. However, our job search experiences were vastly different. He did one interview and got the job, while I had to go through 12 interviews, facing sexist questions in 11 of them. I was asked about my relationship status, whether I planned to have children, and even if I could work with men. These questions highlighted the discrimination I didn’t feel as much during my studies but became very apparent in the workplace. Initially, I worked in manufacturing, but I switched to healthcare because it was more welcoming to women. In manufacturing, my role was to stabilize production and improve processes, often leading to jobs being outsourced to other countries. This was soul-crushing for me because doing my job well meant others would lose theirs. I couldn't align with the purpose of my work, so I transitioned to healthcare, starting with ambulance services and moving into hospital logistics. Healthcare provided a more fulfilling purpose. When I began, no one was discussing efficiency or process improvement in healthcare. I had to advocate for the importance of these concepts, showing that efficient processes benefit patients. I encountered resistance from clinicians who feared efficiency measures would reduce their patient care time or focus solely on cost-cutting. This experience led me to develop a unique approach to process improvement, centered on human factors. We improve processes not just for economic reasons but to enhance patient care and worker satisfaction. My approach ensures that improvements benefit the community and society at large, reflecting the belief that companies should have a positive impact beyond just financial success.

AF: What is the best advice you could give to somebody who is looking to get their foot in the door, but they don't know how to help themselves? How would you counsel somebody or coach somebody into taking that first step of moving forward?

JSF: To start, we need a challenge—something meaningful to achieve. I always emphasize investigating why this challenge is important to see if we can stretch it a bit further, aiming higher. I often tell people that if they succeed all the time, they're playing it too safe. My rule of thumb is that you should achieve four out of five goals you set for yourself. Achieving 80% of your goals is a decent performance; it ensures you’re not demotivated while showing you’re taking some risks. If you're always succeeding, it likely means you're not challenging yourself enough. This advice is particularly relevant for women, who often meet all the criteria when they send out resumes and thus secure interviews easily. Taking risks, even to the point of occasional rejection, ensures you’re not selling yourself short and are pushing your boundaries.

AF: What is something that someone might not suspect about you? What are you like outside of the office so to speak?

I enjoy knitting, crocheting, and sewing, but I do it while listening to heavy metal music. Not many people know that I also know how to belly dance. For those who know me well, I'm a fun person with a close-knit social circle. While I'm not exactly shy, I am more reserved with people I don't know well. It can be challenging to get into my bubble, but once someone does, they discover how much fun I can be.

Connect with Julie here! 

Alanna Fairey is a Client Engagement Specialist at Brand of a Leader. She has a diverse background in fashion communications, branding, and writing. Connect with Alanna here.