Featured Founder: Julia Bower, Co-Founder, The Fractional Directory
What would you do if your side quest unexpectedly turned into a successful company? For AUT alum Julia Bower (Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences), that’s exactly what she had to navigate.
After more than a decade working in software engineering, Julia found herself increasingly frustrated by the rigid structure of the traditional corporate ladder. The next step felt unclear and increasingly incompatible with modern work and life. That was until she discovered the world of fractional leadership and portfolio careers: a growing model where experienced professionals work flexibly across multiple organisations instead of remaining tied to a single full-time role.
As Julia explains, “I felt like I’d stumbled across an entirely new way of working, but soon realised people were already doing this – it was just completely disorganised and almost nobody knew it existed.”
What began as personal curiosity quickly evolved into something much bigger. Alongside co-founder Michelle Allbon, Julia began experimenting with ways to make this hidden network of flexible talent more visible across New Zealand. At the time, highly skilled fractional professionals already existed throughout the country, yet there was no central place for businesses to discover them.
That experiment eventually evolved into The Fractional Directory, a platform connecting businesses with experienced fractional leaders. What began with just 43 profiles has since grown into a search technology platform surfacing more than 3,000 fractional leaders across Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.
Originally, Julia and Michelle never set out to build a startup. “We didn’t think what we built would get as much traction, or as quickly, as it did,” she explains. “The first year I worked on it pretty casually, but by year two things got serious. We needed to start fundraising, going to market, and scaling quickly.”
From there, the company continued growing naturally alongside demand, with the team learning and adapting rapidly as the venture evolved.
Julia also credits AUT’s hands-on learning environment for giving her the confidence to step into unfamiliar challenges and back herself along the way. That mindset eventually led to one of the company’s defining moments: being selected for a world-first pilot programme on the future of work run by the Singapore Government.
Today, The Fractional Directory continues to grow internationally, helping organisations connect with flexible executive talent while opening new possibilities for professionals seeking alternatives to conventional career structures.
For students or aspiring founders sitting on an idea of their own, Julia’s advice is simple: start before you feel ready. “An idea is worth nothing if you don’t do anything with it,” she says._
_“Not every idea is a great one, but you’ll never know unless you try.”
Julia will be speaking at the launch of AUT Ventures’ Startup Field Guide on 28 May at AUT’s City Campus in the Employability Lab from 1–2PM. Come along for some kai and hear firsthand insights into what it really means to build your own pathway, not by waiting for the perfect role to appear, but by creating one yourself, even if you accidentally stumble into it along the way.