Julie Wainwright

Who is Julie Wainwright?

Julie Wainwright is the former CEO of the now-defunct Pets.com and current CEO of The RealReal, a luxury consignment website that sells luxury items, deals and recycling. Wainwright was named "one of the 50 Most Influential Business women in the Bay Area by San Francisco Business Times, and was one of Microtimes' Top 100 Technology Executives for 1997". She is the author of ReBoot: My Five Life-Changing Mistakes and How I Have Moved On, a book chronicling her experiences at Pets.com and SmartNow.

Early in life, she began working for The Clorox Company in brand management and computer software. By age 30 she replaced Wes Boyd as CEO of Berkeley Systems where she was instrumental by changing the company's strategy by making it a leading interactive entertainment entity. As president and CEO of the company, she had reduced a two year decline in productivity. She was among one third of the employees that were laid off from Berkeley when the company was sold to CUC in late 1996.

After this, she went on to Reel.com as the company's President and CEO, replacing founder, Stuart Skorman. After 27 months, Reel.com was sold for $100,000,000 to Hollywood Video after which she left and was replaced by Jeff Jordan, currently the President of OpenTable.com. At this time she had almost 20 years of experience with software, technology and consumer-product industries. She was immediately tabbed by John Hummer of HummerWinblad Ventures to run Pets.com.