Julie Nessen ’82

Julie is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Young Entrepreneurs Alliance (YEA). YEA’s mission is to empower low opportunity teens to turn their lives around through business ownership, job training, financial education, academic and social support.

YEA accomplishes this by working with high school students in Boston-area vocational schools building businesses in the schools. These are income generating businesses with long-term economic viability. The teens are the business owners who structure, finance, market and operate their enterprises. YEA’s current teen-operated businesses are a graphic design firm, a document management company, a scanning business and a virtual assistant business providing off-site secretarial services. Nessen founded this program in 1996 with her father, attorney Robert L. Nessen.

As Director of YEA, Julie drives fundraising, marketing and community relations and is also responsible for expanding existing programs and developing services to help the teen entrepreneurs break into new markets. In addition, Julie continues to work extensively with the YEA teens building and leading workshops on business etiquette, client service, communications skills and professional image building.

Julie brings YEA a dynamic mix of business, non-profit and arts expertise. She served as Vice President of Nessen & Associates, a Boston consulting firm specializing in business and funding development for non-profit companies and was National Producing Director of Plays for Living in New York City- an organization devoted to portraying family and community issues through live theatre. Julie also served in a faculty position at the University of Michigan’s acclaimed Musical Theatre Program and was Assistant Artistic Director at Musical Theatre Works in New York City, a non-profit devoted to the development of new works for the American Musical Theatre. Julie lives in Concord, MA with her husband, 4 children and 2 dogs.