Juliet Simpson

Biography

20 years ago Juliet Simpson founded Stripe Communications, a PR, social, influencer and content agency she built from a standing start. In her role as CEO she built one of the UK's most respected independent consultancies, with offices in Edinburgh and London and a team of over 50. She has worked with major brands including NatWest, Merlin Entertainment, ScottishPower, John Lewis, Ooni, Virgin and The Scottish Government, providing high level strategic counsel across corporate, consumer and internal communications. Following the sale of her founder shareholding in 2012, she went on to manage relationships with AIM listed shareholders and later with US private equity ownership. Before founding Stripe, Juliet was Head of Consumer Campaigns, PR and Corporate Communications for Vodafone, and earlier set up the Edinburgh office of global PR consultancy Citigate SMARTS, where she rose to Director. Across her career she has worked in house and in consultancy for some of the world's leading brands in the UK, Australia and Canada.

Juliet currently holds a portfolio of advisory and trustee roles spanning media, marketing and industry leadership. She is an Independent Trustee of the Employee Ownership Trust at Freethinking Media Group, Chair of Nations & Regions on the WACL Executive Committee, a Fellow of the Marketing Society, a PR Week Power Book nominee, and a regular speaker and judge within the marketing and communications industry.

She has sat on Heriot Watt's International Business School Advisory Board since 2024, and now joins as an Executive in Residence.

Juliet's perspective is shaped by having sat on both sides of the table, as an entrepreneurial founder building and scaling a consultancy business, and as an in house corporate communications and marketing leader managing budgets and teams inside a global corporation. During her career she has advised entrepreneurs on how to launch, grow and protect their business and brand, with experience across FMCG, retail, hospitality and tourism, financial services, utilities and tech. This combination gives her a commercially literate view of what actually moves the needle on business results, brand and reputation.

Juliet's purpose is to support individuals to fulfil their true potential, and she has used her business experience to support those who work alongside her. She is a champion of people first cultures, harnessing human potential to drive commercial outcomes. She does this by building high performing, values aligned cultures and communicating with authenticity. She's looking forward to bringing that perspective into the academic community at Heriot Watt, sharing what she's learned building a business from the ground up, and helping shape leaders to build their businesses and brands with confidence.

Qualifications

• 1993 BA Communication Studies (Queen Margaret University)