Julie Smolyansky

Julie Smolyansky became the youngest female CEO of a publicly held firm when she took over Lifeway Foods at the age of 27 in 2002. Since then, she has continued the company’s growth trajectory with creative product development and marketing to bring kefir, the company’s flagship product, into the U.S. mainstream. Under her leadership, the company has expanded distribution throughout the U.S., Mexico, the UK, Ireland and France, as well as portions of Central and South America and the Caribbean. She's been named to Fortune Business ‘40 under 40,’ and 55 Most Influential Women on Twitter, and one of Best Instagrammers of the 40 Under 40, a 2020 Champion of Wellness by VeryWell and was recently the winner of a Gold Stevie® Award in the Female Executive of the Year – Consumer category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

Julie has produced several documentaries, including “The Homestretch,” “Honor Diaries," “The Hunting Ground” and “On the Record.” In 2013 she co‐founded a non‐profit, Test400k, an organization dedicated to advocating ending the backlog of 400,000 untested rape kits in the U.S. She released her first book, The Kefir Cookbook: An Ancient Healing Superfood for Modern Life, Recipes from My Family Table and Around the World in March of 2018. She lives in Chicago and is the mother of two girls.