Julie Willoughby

Panel: Designing for Sustainability: Balancing Creativity and Responsibility

Julie pioneers innovation at Circ, driving the company toward partnerships with like-minded brands and strengthening Circ's position as it develops a truly circular solution to fashion waste.

Before joining Circ in November of 2019, Julie used her talents to help drive innovation at Nike Headquarters in Oregon. She began working with the apparel giant's Explore team, where she was responsible for shaping major initiatives centered on transitioning groundbreaking material science into product, hiring scientists, and developing a state-of-the-art polymer synthesis laboratory. From there, Julie moved on to work in the Coatings Department for the Manufacturing Innovation team, helping map out the technology and business model for the brand's footwear manufacturing, all while keeping an eye on sustainability.

Prior to Nike, Julie led new barrier coating developments for a leading packaging company, MeadWestvaco (now WestRock). Julie has also been a faculty member at the prestigious Wilson College of Textiles at her alma mater, North Carolina State University. While there, she delved into fibrous materials that took her to Africa and beyond as a recipient of a Bill & Melinda Gates Grand Challenge Exploration's award for a novel cellulosic material designed to protect crops from infestation (now in a commercialization phase in Kenya and Nigeria).

Prior to her time at NC State, Julie cut her teeth as a young engineer scaling chemical technologies, running manufacturing operations, and commercializing products at Dow Corning Corporation. Julie has a passion for creating multi-disciplinary science and engineering systems and challenging the status quo with transparency and integrity.

All roads in her career path have led her to Circ, where she is able to bring together her chemical, pulp & paper, and brand industry experiences to make Circ the "go-to" maker of recovered materials for the consumer goods industry.