Julie Goonewardene crafts a vision and turns it into results. She frequently guides changes in organizations’ trajectories by refocusing strategic, financial, and operational choices around areas of immediate and long-term impact and advantage. Respected as a calm and credible voice in decision making, Goonewardene’s collaborative style combined with her wide-ranging experience base and skill set, including talent management, make her a valuable board member.

Currently in her role at The University of Texas System, one of the largest public university systems in the United States with a $25 billion operating budget, Goonewardene advances key partnerships and priorities in support of 13 educational institutions and the greater stakeholder community. She also creates and leads the organization’s talent and innovation strategies. In addition, she serves as a strategic advisor to SimX, a company on the leading-edge of virtual environments in health care.

An expert at conceptualizing and operationalizing strategies for emerging and fast-growing companies, Goonewardene’s advice and board leadership helped build Diaceutics, a health-care diagnostic technology company, from a start-up with an asset base of $70,000 to a market capitalization of $160 million as a publicly traded company.

With a passion for creating data-informed cultures that inspire and positively challenge those around her, Goonewardene has started, led, and negotiated successful exits including mergers, acquisitions, and initial public offerings for technology and health-related companies. Her contributions at various private and government-supported organizations have helped transform nascent discoveries into products, partnerships, and companies, often with life-changing outcomes.

After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Purdue University, Goonewardene built the first phase of her career in information technology, holding executive positions in both enterprise and start-up organizations and founding two successful technology firms. She shifted focus to public education to leverage her business and leadership experience to start and remake programs designed to support economic prosperity through entrepreneurship, public-private partnerships, and talent development.

Goonewardene has honed her governance expertise in her roles as a CEO, director, board officer, and strategic advisor in multiple organizations and is committed to active and solution-focused board participation.