Julie Valencia

Julie Valencia is the current Director of Spend Operations at Acorns. Prior to their current position, they served as the VP of Operations at Acorns from May 2019 to December 2021. Before their time at Acorns, Julie was the VP, Bank Operations Project Manager at Lincoln Savings Bank from April 2017 to May 2019. And before Lincoln Savings Bank, Julie was the Campus President at Kaplan University from January 2013 to December 2016. During their time as Campus President, Julie oversaw the Academic, Financial Aid, Admissions, and Career Services Departments. Julie was also responsible for leading marketing, lead generation, community outreach, brand recognition, student enrollment, retention and job placement, and employee development and coaching functions in initiatives. In addition, Julie attended community events and participated in leadership panels through local chambers on behalf of the campus. Under their leadership, the campus saw a 200% increase in productivity of admissions teams through incentive planning. Julie also helped achieve record-level enrollments in six different months during 2014 and increased the student census to 275+ students while reducing staff size through process improvement and natural attrition while providing same level of service in a more efficient manner. Furthermore, Julie combined the Business Office and Financial Aid Departments to eliminate duplicate efforts, streamline processes, and reduce internal audit errors while allowing the saving of one FTE. Julie also eliminated redundancies by merging the Business Development Manager and Career Services Director into one role as Client Relations Manager vs. each of them visiting the same businesses to build partnerships

Julie Valencia has a Bachelor's Degree in Business Management with a Concentration in Strategic & Behavioral Management from Pittsburg State University. Julie also has a Master's Degree in Psychology with a Concentration in Industrial / Organizational Psychology from Kaplan University. In addition, they have a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) with a Concentration in E-Business & Global Management from the University of Phoenix. Julie is also certified by General Electric in Change Acceleration Process and Lean Certified. Finally, they have a certification from Columbia Business School in Leading Strategic Growth: Executive Education Program with Columbia Business School and Execonline, Inc.

Julie Valencia reports to Noah Kerner, CEO. Some of their coworkers include David Hijirida - President, Hugh Tamassia - CTO, and Kennedy Reynolds - Chief Brand Officer & Head of Creative Marketing.