Julie Santos

People Operations I Psychedelics I Recruiting

Workshop and Talks

Working with Julie

Danielle Butin

Founder, Afya Foundation

Julie's deep compassion and understanding combined with an ability to engage many in her vision are skills rarely seen. Her impressive leadership have resulted in amazing accomplishments.

Ana LaDou

COO, JPHRO (now CORE)

Julie’s work with JPHRO exemplified her ability to work with and connect with people from any walk of life. Julie is an innovative and thoughtful project manager. She was an integral part of our success.

Stephanie Klempner

Co-Founder, The Pollination Project

Julie's versatility stems from her ability to support and lift anyone she encounters, as well as her keen ability to understand organizational needs/desires and then offer plans to execute.

Clients

Full Bio

Julie’s theory on human connection and diversity grew from her experience in disaster relief. Julie has ran logistics and operations virtually and on the ground for a dozen natural and man-made disasters around the globe. One of these disasters was the devastating 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti. Julie joined forces with doctors, volunteers and actor/activist Sean Penn to build JPHRO, now CORE Response. At JPHRO, Julie ran the day-to-day operations of one of the largest internally displaced camps in Haiti. It was there, and in her independent work with various organizations throughout the country, that she learned the only way to find effective and sustainable solutions to large-scale problems is to empower grassroots leaders to drive change. She also came face to face with the systemic injustice that often lies within philanthropy and grant-making, preventing the empowerment of local communities.

With a desire to build systems that improve the connection between communities on the ground and the external philanthropic efforts trying to support them, Julie served as the Associate Director of The Pollination Project (TPP), a startup foundation that funds grassroots grant-making across the globe. During her tenure, TPP grew from a 2 person team to a crew of 14 employees and 50 grant advisors dispersed globally.

Julie Santos and President Bill Clinton, Haiti 2010

She worked to build TPP from the ground up; cultivating organizational culture,developing and staffing all their departments, and implementing grant-making protocols that democratize the grant-making process. Her time at TPP gave her a deep understanding of how to successfully run decentralized teams and establish people operations that fuel genuine human connection.

After TPP, Julie worked as a consultant, building programs and organizations that made human connection inevitable by using stakeholder participation in both the design and implementation of systems and processes that drive productivity. As clients began to request diverse hires as part of their organizational growth, Julie pushed back, emphasizing the need to create a culture that provides safe work spaces first, to ensure diversity was met with equity and inclusion.

In 2020, Julie took on the role of Head of Human Resources (HR) at The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) where she successfully built the HR and People Operations Department from the ground up during a time of tremendous growth and a global pandemic. But after watching the field of psychedelics grow exponentially with limited inclusion of the Indigenous voices who are the keepers of plant medicine, Julie decided to start Chicha Collective, a company that focuses on building safe and inclusive work spaces in the field of psychedelics and other emerging industries.

After years of working with and around trauma, Julie sees how psychedelics play a key role in ensuring our collective healing and that human connection, when weaved by diverse human experiences, is the foundation for building sustainable solutions to some of our biggest problems.