A leadership philosophy grounded in personal health experience, exploring how empathy, human-centered care, and strategic operations create meaningful wellness experiences that prioritize people over transactions.
Her Story
About Julie
Julie Phillips is a wellness executive and operational strategist with more than 14 years of leadership experience across health optimization, medical aesthetics, fitness, multi-unit operations, and franchise development. As Director of Operations and Franchise Growth at The Covery Self Care: Evolved, she leads operational strategy, franchise development, leadership training, and growth initiatives designed to help wellness businesses scale with consistency, clarity, and purpose.
Throughout her career, Julie has specialized in turning vision into execution. Her work spans scalable operating systems, franchise support, leadership development, sales strategy, team training, client journey design, and performance optimization. She is particularly skilled at creating the infrastructure that allows organizations to grow while protecting culture, service quality, and the human experience at the center of the brand.
Her path into wellness was deeply personal. After navigating her own health challenges, Julie experienced firsthand the impact of a more individualized, compassionate approach to care. That experience became a catalyst for her transition into functional medicine, health optimization, and wellness leadership, and it continues to shape how she approaches both business and client experience today.
She further expanded her expertise through professional certifications as a Master-Level Nutrition Consultant through the National Academy of Sports Medicine and as a Meditation Coach through Chopra. These experiences helped strengthen a leadership philosophy that blends operational discipline with empathy, education, and whole-person thinking.
Julie’s leadership has contributed to franchise expansion, high-performing team development, educational platform creation, operational playbook development, and the implementation of systems designed to improve revenue, consistency, accountability, and client satisfaction. At the center of her work is a belief that sustainable growth happens when strong systems, strong leadership, and genuine human connection work together.
Passionate about the future of hospitality-driven wellness, Julie continues to champion a more human-centered approach to growth, one where innovation and performance are balanced with personalized care, meaningful relationships, and exceptional experiences. Her goal is not simply to help wellness organizations grow bigger, but to help them grow better: more intentional, more scalable, and more impactful for the people they serve.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Julie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my willingness to keep evolving, even when that meant changing direction completely. I’ve never been afraid to ask better questions, challenge the way things have always been done, or admit when there is more to learn. Some of the most important moments in my career grew out of difficult experiences in my own life that forced me to become more curious about health, leadership, and what people truly need to thrive.
I’ve also learned that success is rarely about having all the answers. It comes from listening well, surrounding yourself with great people, staying coachable, and being willing to do the work behind the vision. I care deeply about people, but I also believe care needs structure. Empathy without execution doesn’t create change, and systems without humanity don’t create connection. A lot of my success has come from learning how to bring those two worlds together.
Most importantly, I’ve never wanted success to be measured only by what I accomplish personally. I want to build people, create opportunities, improve experiences, and leave organizations stronger than I found them. If the people around me are growing, the clients we serve are better because of our work, and the business is healthier as a result, that is success to me.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I’ve ever received is to never become so attached to a title, a plan, or the way things have always been done that you stop evolving.
My career has taken turns I never could have predicted, and some of the greatest opportunities came from being willing to step outside of what was familiar and follow where my curiosity was leading me. I’ve learned to ask questions, stay coachable, surround myself with people who challenge me, and be willing to change direction when something no longer aligns with where I’m going.
I’ve also learned that growth often requires being comfortable not having every answer. Leadership isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about listening, learning quickly, making thoughtful decisions, and having the courage to keep moving forward.
The version of you that got you here may not be the same version of you that takes you where you’re going next. Be willing to evolve.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Don’t wait until you feel completely ready. You probably won’t, and that’s okay.
This industry is evolving quickly, which means there is tremendous opportunity for women who are willing to stay curious, keep learning, and step into rooms before they feel perfectly prepared.
Build a strong understanding of both people and business. Learn how operations work, understand the numbers, become comfortable with sales, study the client journey, and pay attention to what makes teams thrive. The more well-rounded you become, the more valuable your perspective will be.
I would also encourage young women not to underestimate empathy as a leadership strength. You can be compassionate and still be decisive. You can care deeply about people and still hold high standards. In fact, some of the strongest leaders I know do both.
Most importantly, stay open to where your career may take you. Your path does not have to be perfectly linear to be meaningful. Sometimes the unexpected turns are the ones that lead you exactly where you are meant to make the greatest impact.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I believe one of the greatest opportunities in wellness right now is the shift from reactive, fragmented care toward more personalized, preventative, and integrated approaches to health. Consumers increasingly want wellness to be part of their everyday lives, and demand is growing for experiences that connect health optimization, fitness, aesthetics, longevity, nutrition, mental wellbeing, and lifestyle rather than treating each of those areas in isolation. Current industry research reflects that shift, particularly around personalization, prevention, and longevity.
At the same time, I think that growth creates one of our biggest challenges. Innovation is moving incredibly quickly, and more options do not automatically mean better care. New technologies, treatments, diagnostics, and wellness trends are constantly emerging, which makes education, responsible implementation, appropriate clinical oversight, and earning consumer trust increasingly important.
For leaders in this industry, the opportunity is not simply to offer the newest modality. It is to thoughtfully connect the right services, technology, expertise, and education around the individual. The organizations that stand out will be the ones that can innovate while still creating clarity and genuine human connection.
I also believe there is a tremendous opportunity to prove that personalization and scalability do not have to compete with one another. As wellness brands grow, we have to build stronger systems and more consistent experiences without making people feel processed. Technology and data can help us understand people better, but they should enhance the human relationship, not replace it.
To me, that is where the future of wellness is headed: more personalized, more preventative, more connected, and still deeply human.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity, empathy, curiosity, and connection are at the center of how I try to live and lead. I value being someone whose actions match her words, who remains open enough to keep learning, and who takes the time to understand people beyond the surface.
I believe you can have high standards without losing compassion, pursue ambitious goals without losing yourself, and build successful businesses without losing the human connection that made them meaningful in the first place.
In both my work and personal life, I try to leave people, places, and situations better than I found them. Success matters to me, but character, relationships, and the impact we have on others matter more.
Her Content Hub
Articles by Julie
Human First: Why the Future of Wellness Needs More Than Biohacking
How my journey as a patient became the foundation for a human-centered approach to wellness, leadership, and business growth.
Human First: The Client Experience That Shaped My Leadership Philosophy
I never set out to build a career around biohacking, longevity, wellness, and the client journey.
In many ways, that career began when I became the client.
In my late twenties, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. At that age, I remember feeling as though I had just been handed a life sentence. I didn't fully understand what was happening to my body, why I didn't feel like myself, or what my future would look like.
What I remember most, however, wasn't simply the diagnosis.
It was how vulnerable I felt.
When you're sitting on the other side of a desk looking for answers about your health, you aren't a diagnosis. You aren't a lab value. You aren't a number on someone's schedule.
You're a human being who wants someone to listen.
That realization changed the trajectory of my life.
When Care Became Personal
Instead of following the path I initially expected, I found my way to a functional medicine physician who approached my experience differently.
For the first time, I felt that someone wasn't simply looking at what was happening on paper. They were looking at me.
There was compassion.
There were questions.
There was curiosity about my lifestyle, nutrition, stress, habits, and overall well-being.
Most importantly, there was a plan.
Rather than feeling as though I was being handed a cookie-cutter answer, I felt that someone was helping me understand a pathway forward. My experience became less about a diagnosis controlling my life and more about learning how the choices I made every day could support the way I wanted to live.
That experience planted a seed that would eventually influence nearly every part of my career.
I began asking myself a question:
What if more people experienced healthcare and wellness this way?
What if people felt seen before they were sold something?
What if we asked better questions before recommending solutions?
What if the client journey started with empathy rather than a menu of services?
Those questions became the foundation of how I lead today.
From Wellness Professional to Human-First Operator
Over the years, my career has grown through fitness, wellness, spa operations, membership businesses, sales, leadership development, franchise growth, and multi-unit operations.
I've learned how to analyze KPIs, improve conversion, build membership strategies, manage labor, develop leaders, create SOPs, launch locations, build training systems, and improve financial performance.
I believe deeply in all of those things.
Businesses need systems.
They need accountability.
They need strong margins, healthy revenue, clearly defined KPIs, effective sales processes, and leaders who understand performance.
But somewhere along the way, wellness businesses can become so focused on optimization that they forget what they're actually optimizing.
A human life.
That distinction matters to me.
I love biohacking. I love innovation. I love exploring how technology, therapies, data, recovery, nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management, and other tools can help people improve the way they feel and live.
But I have become what I think of as a human-first biohacker.
Because technology should support humanity, not replace it.
There Is No Universal Wellness Roadmap
One of the biggest lessons I've learned in this industry is that two people can walk through the same door wanting completely different things.
One person may want more energy.
Another may be struggling with stress.
Someone else may want to improve athletic performance, sleep better, recover faster, manage their weight, feel more confident, or simply feel like themselves again.
They may select the same service.
But they did not arrive there for the same reason.
That is why I believe the best wellness businesses need to move beyond transactional service menus and begin creating personalized client roadmaps.
Before asking, What can we sell this person?
We should be asking:
What brought you here?
How do you want to feel?
What is getting in the way of that?
What have you already tried?
What does your daily life actually look like?
And what kind of plan can realistically fit into it?
Those questions transform a transaction into a relationship.
And relationships are where trust begins.
Empathy and Performance Are Not Opposites
Sometimes empathy is treated as a soft skill.
I disagree.
In wellness, empathy is an operating strategy.
When people feel understood, they communicate differently.
When teams understand the purpose behind what they're offering, they sell differently.
When leaders understand their employees, they coach differently.
And when organizations understand their clients, they build better experiences.
My approach to leadership has become centered around that intersection:
People. Operations. Revenue.
I don't see them as competing priorities.
They strengthen one another.
A better-trained employee creates a better consultation.
A better consultation builds greater trust.
Greater trust can lead to stronger engagement and retention.
Better retention creates healthier recurring revenue.
And healthier businesses have more resources to invest back into their people and their clients.
That is the ecosystem I love building.
Scaling Care Without Losing the Human Element
As my career moved into multi-unit operations and franchise growth, I encountered another challenge:
How do you scale something deeply personal?
Systems are necessary for growth. Without standards, training, KPIs, processes, and accountability, an organization eventually becomes a collection of locations doing things differently.
But standardization has a dangerous cousin: sameness.
I believe we can standardize how well we care for people without assuming every person needs the same care.
We can create consistent discovery processes while allowing individualized conversations.
We can train teams around service standards while encouraging genuine human connection.
We can use technology and CRM systems while making sure communication still feels personal.
We can measure performance without reducing people to numbers.
That has become one of the defining principles of my leadership philosophy:
Build the system around the human, not the human around the system.
The Client Journey Is Really a Human Journey
When I think about customer experience today, I don't picture a traditional sales funnel.
I picture someone like the woman I was in my late twenties.
She may walk through the door unsure.
She may be overwhelmed.
She may have spent months or years looking for answers.
She may have tried things that didn't work.
She may be skeptical.
She may not even know exactly what she needs.
That person doesn't need to be greeted with a pitch.
She needs curiosity.
She needs education.
She needs someone capable of listening long enough to understand what she is actually trying to change.
That doesn't mean wellness businesses should diagnose medical conditions outside their scope or promise outcomes they cannot guarantee. Human-first care also means understanding our boundaries, collaborating appropriately with qualified healthcare professionals, and being responsible with the trust people give us.
But within those boundaries, there is enormous room for better care.
We can create thoughtful roadmaps.
We can educate.
We can encourage.
We can connect people with appropriate resources.
And we can build experiences that make people feel like active participants in their own well-being.
The Leader I Became Because of the Client I Once Was
Looking back, I can draw a straight line from my own health experience to the leader I am today.
Being the person searching for answers taught me compassion.
Working in sales taught me communication.
Managing locations taught me accountability.
Launching businesses taught me resilience.
Leading multiple locations taught me systems thinking.
Working with franchise owners taught me adaptability.
Developing leaders taught me that sustainable growth never comes from one person doing everything.
And working throughout the wellness industry taught me something even bigger:
People don't simply want more years in their lives. They want more life in their years.
That is why longevity matters to me.
That is why wellness matters to me.
And that is why the human being must remain at the center of all of it.
Where I Believe Wellness Goes Next
The next generation of wellness will have extraordinary tools available to it.
We will continue seeing advancements in diagnostics, recovery, longevity science, personalized medicine, technology, AI, wearables, data, and performance optimization.
I'm excited about that future.
But my hope is that as our tools become more sophisticated, our care becomes more human, not less.
Because the most advanced wellness experience in the world means very little if the person receiving it doesn't feel heard.
My mission has evolved far beyond operating wellness locations.
I want to help build a wellness industry where high performance and high empathy coexist.
Where businesses can scale without becoming impersonal.
Where technology enhances the human relationship instead of replacing it.
Where teams are trained not simply to recommend services, but to listen.
Where the client journey begins with a person rather than a product.
My diagnosis in my twenties once felt like something that was happening to me.
Years later, I can see how profoundly it shaped what grew through me.
It taught me what it feels like to need someone to see the person behind the problem.
And today, whether I'm building a client journey, coaching a leader, developing a wellness concept, creating an operating system, or thinking about the future of biohacking, I return to the same principle:
Human First. Always.
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