Julie Jenanyan developed her entrepreneurial spirit and instinct for organizing at an early age. When still in elementary school, she started her first venture, a home cleaning business. Armed with flyers and a vacuum cleaner, she went door-to-door in her neighborhood in an attempt to earn enough money to buy a cash register for a future business. She never purchased the cash register, but her penchant for counting money never waned.
After graduating from the University of San Diego in 1984, Julie worked and traveled extensively before moving to the Napa Valley in 1991, where she assumed the management of her family’s small Howell Mountain winery, Liparita Cellars. Trading Bangkok and Brussels for Dallas and Des Moines, she traveled for the winery in her role as national sales and brand manager.
When Julie’s son, Sam, was born in 1997, she retired her sales hat and started her own business, WineWords, specializing in copywriting for the wine, food, travel and non-profit industries. In between naps and nursery school, she built a solid base of over 40 clients, including Araujo Estate, Copia, and Beringer Winery, and also wrote for local travel publications.
In 2008, Julie came up with the idea for Monkey Off Your Back. As she was happily setting up filing systems and online bank accounts for a friend’s new business, she saw how her knack for organization could help people better function in their personal and professional lives.
Julie now works to eliminate monkeys for clients throughout the Napa Valley and San Francisco Bay Area. She and Sam live in St. Helena with their Heinz-57 mutt, Rosie.
