Julie and her colleagues take on product owner and strategy roles at clients. The common thread is understanding both business and tech well enough to connect them. "Everything we do is about bridging those two sides. That's why our roles exist." That connection is also where projects most often go wrong.
"I think it's still an underrated role," she says. "When it's done well, people see: this is why it exists." For Julie, doing it well means chasing value and being honest about it. Are we delivering what we think we're delivering? Can we show it? "That's what gives your team and the products you build their right to exist. If you just start building and see where the ship runs aground, that's where it always goes wrong."
Her team used to be called Analytics Translators. The new name, Data & AI Strategy Consultants, is easier to recognise for people outside the field and reflects the strategic side of the work. For Julie, the old name still captures something essential about it: the translation between business and tech sits at the heart of everything the team does.
During her bachelor's, a course in information management caught Julie's attention. She followed that thread into a master's in Business Information Management with a data science track. That's where programming came in, which suited someone who had always enjoyed puzzling away on her computer. She later added a post-master in Data Science and AI, which included a hands-on data science project of her own.
Coding isn't part of her day-to-day now, but she's glad she has the experience. "It's really useful for someone in this role to have been at the controls yourself at least once. It doesn't have to be at a large scale, but it helps so much when you talk with the people who work that way every day. Speaking the same “language” makes everything more tangible." With GenAI in the picture, she adds, knowing understanding a technology under the hood helps you see where it fits and where it doesn't give you a flying start.
Before Xomnia, Julie spent almost three years working on Responsible AI at a large consultancy. What drew her to the field were the questions of ethics at its core, almost philosophical in nature. As AI regulation grew, her work shifted towards compliance: writing policies and guidelines. "I learned a lot from it. But at some point I realised I'd mastered that trick, and I didn't want to become a legal advisor."
She wanted to be closer to the data and analytics products themselves and do more hands-on building. She sees a divide in the AI field: people who build rarely engage with policy, and people who work on policy rarely engage with the technology. To her, bringing the two together is key.
Xomnia appealed because it's smaller, more dynamic and more hands-on at the client. The way of working mattered most. "When working with Xomnia’s clients, it really feels like a partnership. You work towards something tangible together with a team, instead of just handing over the insights and closing the door behind you."
Almost two years in, Julie has worked with clients including Alliander, TenneT, Rabobank and VodafoneZiggo. She has done around five projects, with a sixth under way, which works out to four or five months per assignment. She's candid about the downside of switching: settling into a new organisation takes effort every time. "But once you're over that hump, it's always: nice, I get to work somewhere new again." That variety is what makes consulting at Xomnia worthwhile for her, and the length of the assignments feels right too. "It's long enough to really add value. You're not in and out in a month or two. It feels like a sweet spot."
About half the time, she shares a project with a teammate. Her team is the smallest at Xomnia, around ten people, and that makes those shared projects feel close."You always have colleagues to check in with and think things through together. And it's just fun. They're all really nice people."
Julie spends two to three days a week at the Xomnia office and the rest with her client. She lives a ten-minute bike ride away, so even on days she could work from home, she often comes in anyway. "The office is just a nice place to be, with nice people, also outside our team."
Fridays are the high point. On the day of our interview, around seventy colleagues were in the office, and nobody is required to be there. "Friday always feels like a little gift at the end of the week. When I wrap up at the client on Thursday, I think: tomorrow is still a working day, but it already feels like closing the week together." Most of her friends work from home on Fridays, she adds. The only downside is that desks run out, which is one reason a new office is on the way.
Julie recently sat on the panel at one of our Data & Drinks events to talk about Responsible AI, a topic that has stayed with her. The focus shifts every year, she says, and right now the priority is sovereignty: the growing demand for European-based platforms and LLMs. She sees an opportunity for Xomnia to lead here, by showing how these options perform and what else they bring. "That's exactly the gap I missed in Responsible AI before, and it's something a technical team like ours can fill really well."
It's also an example of how things work at Xomnia more broadly. "If you give something attention and feed it, it actually comes to life. You see that with a lot of people here. If you have the drive to do something, there's room for it."
Asked what she's proudest of, Julie points to her own growth, and the fact that she can name it concretely. A good click with her manager and career mentor gave her space to reflect, and Xomnia's learning budget covered targeted training. Leadership was something she always felt she could do and wanted to do. "I knew it was in me, but not how to get there. Now I'm there, and I notice the impact in my daily work."
Today she's a career mentor herself, currently for two people and soon for four. At Xomnia, a career mentor is formally your manager, which includes salary conversations and being the link with HR. Julie's focus is coaching: making sure people land on assignments that suit them, and looking beyond the competency matrix. "Who are you in your work, and what do you want to put out there in those forty hours a week? That's so much more interesting to talk about than how many boxes you've ticked." What gives her the most satisfaction is seeing someone change their mindset, or find a way of communicating that really works for them. "It's more fulfilling than I expected."
She knows how all of this might sound. "Like Xomnia, every company has its pros and cons. But I feel very clearly why I enjoy working here. Nothing in this blog is made up."
Julie wants to build on that foundation by driving specific propositions, starting with sovereignty: taking it end to end, from where it should be in two years to what it takes to get there. "We really are thought leaders on a lot of things. I think we need to make that much clearer." Making Xomnia's knowledge visible to the outside world is really the same job she does for clients every day: showing what's there, and making sure people can see it. From zero to one, one topic at a time.
Curious about working with Julie and her team? We are looking for new Data & AI Strategy Consultants.
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