By Ashley Rabinovitch 

For as long as she can remember, Julia Matthews T’09 has thought deeply about improving the systems around her. “Growing up, everyone around me thought I was going to become a lawyer because I have always cared tremendously about justice and fairness,” she says.

The New Jersey native studied international relations at the University of Pennsylvania in a bid to understand how countries and institutions work together to create a better world. She joined Teach for America immediately after graduation, first as an eighth-grade English and Social Studies teacher, and then as a development associate. In what she calls a “compelling entry point into social impact work,” she got her first taste of effecting change at the intersection of public education, nonprofit, and corporate spaces. 

Journey to Tuck

Inspired by the influx of education reform professionals pursuing business education, Matthews enrolled at Tuck in 2007. If she could understand how businesses pulled various levers for change, she reasoned, she could apply this knowledge in any context. Though at the time, Tuck did not offer an explicitly impact-focused path, Hanover proved an ideal training ground for a career in social impact.

“The theme of social responsibility permeated our lives at Tuck,” says Matthews. From offering safe rides to expecting students to return emails promptly, Tuck cultivates an honor code that impressed upon her the power of norms to shape entire communities. “There was an expectation that we would show up for each other and our community, not just that we learned and moved on,” she says. 

Making an Impact in Education

With an extensive toolbox at her disposal after completing her MBA, Matthews rounded out her education as a management consultant at Booz & Company before embarking on a series of roles in education. She worked in strategic growth and planning at the Relay Graduate School of Education, directed an external affairs team at Columbia’s Center for Public Research and Leadership, and managed the academic budget for Newark Public Schools. “Each role equipped me to view problems through a different lens,” she reflects. And, after building new teams, new functions, and new initiatives in diverse settings, she was ready to build her own consulting firm. 

Gifted at understanding and combining perspectives from a wide range of stakeholders, Matthews thrived in her consulting role. But only a few years after founding her own firm, she couldn’t turn down the invitation from a fellow Tuck alum to become Peloton’s new Chief of Staff for the People team. Given her background in social impact and experience in a strategic planning capacity, Peloton was a natural fit. 

At Peloton, A Strong Commitment to ESG

Since 2020, Matthews has served in a variety of roles at Peloton, most recently as Vice President of Peloton’s inaugural Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Strategy team. She feels fortunate to have found a professional home not only in the ESG space, but within a company that goes beyond a traditional bottom-line mentality to benefit the communities it serves. Peloton’s core mission is to help people realize the best version of themselves through physical fitness and mental well-being, but that mission does not begin and end with its products. 

In its key markets, Peloton forges partnerships with one or two nonprofit organizations that address barriers to physical fitness and mental health in the local population. In collaboration with these partners, Matthews, and her team aim to promote greater health in the lives of 500,000 people experiencing systemic inequity. On the environmental sustainability side, Peloton has committed to setting science-based emissions reduction targets and advancing circularity across its product and service offerings. The team is prioritizing high-impact opportunities at the intersection of emissions reduction and circularity, including a focus on increased repairability for its connected-fitness products, a Peloton Certified Refurbished program, and enabling a second life for products on the secondary market. 

From Matthews’ perspective, investing in sustainability and social impact isn’t just the right course of action—it’s also the most effective. “Our society is evolving from shareholder capitalism to stakeholder capitalism, where companies are expected to contribute to a more fair and just society through the products and services they bring to market,” says Matthews. 

The ever-evolving nature of ESG means that this year’s skillset may not solve next year’s thorniest problems, but for Matthews, the opportunity to widen her impact has always been worth the effort. 

“At our core, humans want to have agency and effect change,” she says. “I’m so fortunate to serve in a role that allows me to show up the way I want to in the world. It’s a powerful thing.

This story originally appeared in print in the Summer 2024 issue of Tuck Today magazine.