Julia Shanks works with food and agricultural entrepreneurs to help them achieve financial sustainability. She specializes in helping entrepreneurs set up their accounting systems so they can better manage their businesses, plan for growth and avoid cash crunches.
In addition to business management, Julia utilizes her 15 year experience as a chef to help clients develop menus and recipes; often with the most vexing requirements – like utilizing crickets or avoiding gluten.
Twitter : @juliashanks
Julia brings a broad range of professional experiences to her clients, from pilot to chef to serial entrepreneur. She combines the practicality of an accountant with the creativity of a chef.
Focused on building a more sustainable food system, Julia has written two books. "The Farmer's Office" coaches farmers to think like entrepreneurs so they can grow financially sustainable businesses. "The Farmers Market Cookbook," co-authored with Brett Grohsgal and cited as a reference in Michelle Obama’s American Grown, ensures consumers can best appreciate and utilize the farmers' bounties.
Julia’s career started at the FAA as an aviation analyst and quickly took a turn to the culinary arts. After more than 10 years of professional cooking, Julia got her MBA, became a college professor of accounting and now works with small businesses to write business plans and get the financing they need to grow their businesses.
Julia launched her first business, Interactive Cuisine, in 1997. Through this innovative service, she provided informal cooking lessons in the comfort of customers’ home kitchens. The business grew to include corporate team-building through cooking, using cooking as a model to improve teamwork and collaboration. Clients included McKinsey, Royal Dutch Shell and Skadden Arps. She garnered local and national press, including accolades from Bon Appétit and the Boston Globe. In 2006, she brought her business to Fidelity and helped them launch Sebastians Interactive Kitchen (now Action Kitchen).
Today, Julia consults with food businesses and farms, helping them maximize profits and streamline operations through business planning, feasibility studies and operational audits. Some of Julia’s most intriguing projects include developing a Cricket Cracker recipe for Aspire Food Group and refining the growth strategy of Boston’s first rooftop farm.
Julia received her professional training as a chef at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, her BA from Hampshire College and an MBA Magna Cum Laude from Babson College. She sits on the advisory board of Future Chefs and is the regional leader of Slow Money Boston
