Imagine Next

Through the Council, she created the Imagine Next Global Innovation Challenge, a 2026 Anthem Awards finalist; the Imagine Next Silicon Valley Climate Tech Capital Summit; and the Symbiotic Matrix, a consequence-first method for evaluating innovation. She is a Venture Partner at Network VC and an advisor and mentor at Berkeley SkyDeck.

For almost twenty years, Julia helped lead Ibcentre, the company she co-founded to build Ukraine's renewable energy market. Ibcentre ran the region's largest renewable energy trade shows, an educational platform for solar and renewables, and an engineering division that built some of Ukraine's first renewable energy infrastructure. It developed projects in seven countries, from Central and Eastern Europe to the Caucasus and Central Asia, and helped facilitate billions in clean energy investments. Julia co-initiated Ukraine's household solar legislation and helped shape the country's renewable energy policy, including as vice president of the public council of the State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving.

Later, in parallel with the energy business, she co-founded the venture that pioneered sustainable 3D-printed fashion, including the first full collection of wearable clothing made with large-format 3D printers and solar energy, presented at New York Fashion Week. That work grew into a startup that pioneered the digital delivery of physical consumer goods: products delivered as digital designs and made close to the customer with additive and other advanced manufacturing, eliminating most of the supply chain and the distance goods travel.

She began her career early, in economic journalism and analysis focused on energy markets, as an economic reporter and editor of specialized energy coverage at Inter, and later as a host, editor, and project lead behind an analytical program on the Ukrainian Business Channel.

Her work has earned multiple awards, including an Edison Awards Gold, a Guinness World Record, and the PressZvanie award, which named her one of the three best economic journalists on Ukrainian television. It has also been featured in innovation showcases and collections, including FIDM's Innovation Material Collection and the Boston Center for the Arts, among others. A graduate of a specialized physics and mathematics school, she studied energy engineering and holds degrees in ecology and international economics, as well as an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas.