We are a highly experienced, multi-disciplinary team with decades of experience helping businesses unlock hidden value and accelerate growth. Together, we combine deep expertise in human-centred strategic insight, marketing strategy and capability building, and sales and marketing alignment — bringing clarity, confidence, and momentum to every engagement.
Founder and Lead Consultant
Expert in uncovering insight that de-risks strategic decisions and underpins confident growth.
Julie is the founder of Distinction Consulting, with over 25 years' experience supporting business leaders across multiple countries, cultures, and B2B sectors. She is widely recognised for her ability to ask the right questions, uncover blind spots, and extract insight that informs confident strategic direction — strengthening marketing capability, shaping key account and growth priorities, and supporting high-stakes commercial and investment decisions.
Combining empathy with rigour, Julie conducts deep, independent customer and stakeholder insight with sensitivity and absolute objectivity. Trusted by leadership teams to engage directly with their customers, she is known for uncovering "gold dust" — insight that has helped leaders of hundreds of established SMEs, family-owned businesses, and corporate divisions unlock hidden value, de-risk critical choices, and create sustainable, differentiated growth.
Julie holds a Master's degree in Marketing Management (with Distinction) from Lancaster University and is a Chartered Marketer.
Beyond the Work
Outside of her consulting work, Julie is an endurance athlete. She has completed over 100 marathons and ultra-marathons, including the Legendary Marathon des Sables – known as 'the toughest footrace on earth.'
Training for and completing these events demands discipline, preparation, resilience, and the ability to make sound decisions under sustained pressure, often in uncertain and unforgiving conditions.
Alongside the physical challenge, Julie has raised thousands of pounds for charity through her endurance running, reflecting a strong sense of purpose and commitment beyond personal achievement.
This mindset strongly shapes how she works with her clients: going deep before acting, pacing change intelligently, and staying grounded in evidence when the environment is challenging.
Marketing Strategy & Capability Consultant
Transforms marketing from a reactive support function into a measurable, sales-aligned growth engine.
Francesca works with leadership teams to bring clarity, structure, and effectiveness to marketing and sales operations. Her focus is on improving brand visibility, introducing appropriate automation, and putting the processes and systems in place that support scale and long-term performance.
Working from an evidence-led foundation, Francesca helps organisations streamline activity, improve the buyer journey, and introduce meaningful measurement — enabling teams to generate higher-quality leads, free up time, and understand the return on their marketing investment. The result is a fit-for-purpose marketing function aligned with sales and focused on commercial impact rather than reactive activity.
Francesca is known for translating strategic intent into practical execution, ensuring insight becomes action and capability is embedded without over-reliance on external agencies. Francesca holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Fine Art, bringing a blend of analytical thinking and creative perspective to her work.
Beyond the Work
Alongside her consultancy work, Francesca maintains an active fine art practice. Her studio work is rooted in disciplined iteration — observing what is working, stripping back what is not, and strengthening underlying structure through repeated refinement.
This process directly informs how she works with organisations. It reinforces the value of clarity over complexity, progress over perfection, and building systems that evolve through evidence and feedback rather than assumption. The same principles underpin her approach to marketing capability: thoughtful diagnosis, deliberate action, and continuous improvement that compounds over time.
