How Jessie Ju Finds Success with her Confucian Spirit

As the founder of Juniper, a boutique management consulting firm on Bay Street in Toronto, Jessie Ju has made a name for herself as a sharp strategist with a history of successful business launches, mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring projects.

Her professional biography paints a success story—the picture of a no-nonsense woman who can juggle multi-million-dollar deals and hold her own in a room full of men and women competing for power and money. So, when Ju, wearing a flowing white dress, welcomed us to her office with a warm smile, we were delightfully surprised.

As soon as we sat down together, we knew we had found someone special. Ju’s ability to set a room at ease and make people feel valued is precisely what sets her apart in the high-pressure world of corporate management.

Juniper’s clients come from around the world and cover a wide array of industries, from manufacturing to marketing and everything in between. Ju’s breadth of experience with such diverse groups of people has helped her develop a keen sense of project priorities, regardless of circumstances.

“It seems complicated, but when you really get down to it, my job is to make sure the deal gets completed in the mutual interest of each stakeholder,” Ju says. “It’s important to genuinely understand everyone’s agenda and align that to a common goal.”

Embracing opportunity

Ju has worked her way up from the ground floor of the finance industry over the past 20 years. Her work ethic put her in a league of her own, even as a student.

“I did my undergraduate degree at York University part-time because I already had a full-time job as a financial analyst. By the time I finished my undergraduate degree, I was a financial manager,” Ju says.

After graduating, she had the opportunity to work with some of the industry’s top veterans and large financial institutions. Ju became so proficient at advising businesses that she began to think about starting her own company.

One of her ideas for a startup required partnering with a real estate developer, but during the process of interviewing potential partners an entirely different opportunity presented itself.

“After one of the meetings, the builder mentioned he’d acquired a non-profit business with the intention of turning it into a for-profit business,” Ju says.

During the course of their conversation, she offered him insightful advice on his project. “I didn’t end up pursuing the startup idea, and I instead chose to help the company transform its business model,” she says.

After that unexpected encounter, Ju discovered her niche and founded her company, Juniper. She now leads a team of chief financial orchestrators whose bespoke approach to client management has earned them a reputation for success.

The art of communication

Ju says that communication is at the heart of her job. “Every deal has its own character and nature. It all comes down to how we treat people.”

Earlier in her career, Ju was approached by the management of a Japanese company that needed help for a large merger and acquisition project. “They wanted to merge eight companies in various provinces across Canada, involving hundreds of millions of dollars,” she says.

“It was probably the most challenging project I’ve ever completed. Canada was executing a strategic plan created by Japan and, at the same time, we had to report to the U.S. My mission was to create a team with its own value and culture while acquiring and integrating each business into the Canadian company.”