From Contributor to Leader

Explore what it takes to successfully move from an individual contributor into a leadership role. It highlights the critical mindset shift from achieving results independently to driving success through others, emphasizing the importance of emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, communication and trust building.  Participants learn how to proactively develop leadership skills before holding a formal title, recognize and avoid common blind spots such as over reliance on technical expertise or reluctance to delegate and create a personal plan for continued growth.  The session encourages emerging leaders to define their own leadership purpose, build influence through authenticity, and approach leadership as an ongoing journey of learning, reflection and impact

About Julia Culkin-Jacobia
Julia Culkin-Jacobia, BS '98, is a seasoned human resources and compensation leader with more than two decades of experience advising boards, CEOs, and executive teams on aligning pay with strategy, performance, and long-term value creation. She currently serves as Practice Leader, Compensation Consulting at Catapult Executive Consulting, where she partners with organizations across industries to design and implement compensation strategies that attract, retain, and motivate top talent. Julia advises boards, compensation committees, and senior leadership on executive and director pay, incentive plan design, pay governance, and regulatory compliance, bringing deep expertise in both strategy and execution.

Julia’s career includes senior HR and compensation leadership positions in both corporate and consulting environments. Her experience spans publicly traded companies, health care, technology, manufacturing, and nonprofit sectors, giving her a uniquely broad perspective on workforce and compensation challenges. She has led compensation committee advisory work, supported multiple mergers and acquisitions, and developed high-potential leadership programs that build sustainable talent pipelines. Julia has been recognized as a Women of Influence honoree and Human Resource Executive of the Year for Mid-Size Companies.

Today, as a Practice Leader of our Compensation line of business and Executive Coach, Julia combines her deep technical expertise in executive pay and incentive design with her broad leadership background to help organizations align compensation with culture, purpose, and performance.

Julia has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Buffalo and obtained her executive education certification from Harvard Business School.