Julia Campagnola

The first thing that strikes you about Julia Campagnola is that she is fizzing with energy, whether she’s working or playing. Words like proactive and positive hardly begin to describe her attitude to life! Her CV would be impressive if she was 53 – but it’s extraordinary considering she is 33! For example, when she was business manager for Bartercard she won the top brokerage award for sales, trading, turnover and business relations. The franchise started with five clients and she built it up to 120 over a year, with an average monthly turnover of 100K. “I’m unusual I suppose – I’m really good at selling and love cold calling! Being paid to meet new people – how great is that? ", she laughs!

At the same time, using her BA Hons Jewellery and Silversmithing, she has created her own business www.juici.co.uk designing and making, a range of silver cast jewellery, and selling through stockists, businesses and fashion shows.

Her most recent challenge came after she was headhunted to join Unity Telecoms to pioneer mobile phone sales from outlets in all 19 Costco stores. This may now transmute into a possible roadshow. “It was a very steep leaning curve, and I soon realised I needed a knowledge of project management structure and procedures if I was to succeed,” she recalls. Through both research and recommendation, she enrolled on the five-day intensive PRINCE2™ course with Scoll Methods earlier this year, and her company picked up the tab.

“It was a totally new world, with a new language and new ways of thinking. I am a very visual person, so I had to write everything down. Our tutor, Mark Sutton was brilliant, he understood that I needed images and written words, and at one point there was literally writing all over the walls! There were only five of us in the group, so we each got all the attention we needed. It was extremely hard work, but great fun! I didn’t go in dreading it in the morning, it was very relaxed and we talked about our daily lives and related that to the course content.”

Julia passed the exams with no problem, and was full of ideas that she put into practise as soon as she got back to work. She plans to make her career with Unity for the foreseeable future, “Once you find a good company you want to stay with them.” The course not only made a huge difference to how she tackled projects at Unity, it also made her rethink her jewellery business.

“I will need a course at the next level to move forward, and I will definitely choose Scoll,” she says.