Julie is an award-winning entrepreneur who is passionate about empowering others into entrepreneurship. She is a business owner, mentor, author, international speaker, community volunteer, and mother of two. Julie founded her first company, a software and services firm called Applied Creative Technologies, Inc. (ACT), when her children were young and grew her business to multi-millions in revenues as she raised her children. After cashing out and selling ACT’s software to a business partner, she now teaches entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County through the ACTiVATE program, writes a column for Enterprising Women magazine, and is the entrepreneurial “Ask the Expert” on Working Mother Magazine’s website.

She is also the Founder of Path Forward International which offers workshops, consulting, and keynotes to give entrepreneurial companies and individuals a “Boot in the Butt™” to launch new ideas, grow existing ventures, find their work/life balance, and fine-tune their leadership skills.

Ms. Kirk received the Athena Award in 2004 as recognition for her contributions to other business women and the community and was named to Maryland’s Top 100 Women 2005 sponsored by The Daily Record. She is also an ex-officio member of the Board of the Center for Women in Information Technology at UMBC, a member of the Center for Women in IT’s Entrepreneurial Alliance, and a mentor for Count Me In’s Make Mine a $Million Business program.

Ms. Kirk graduated from Texas A&M University with a B.S. in Computer Science and is leader in numerous community organizations. She currently resides in the Washington D.C. metro area with her husband and two children.

For more information go to www.JulieLenzerKirk.com.