It all started at the Gap, where Julianne (Smith) McCollum (HHS’97) worked in high school. “I loved trying to understand why people buy certain things,” she says. So when she got to Purdue, she studied consumer sciences and retailing. While her classmates wanted to be buyers, McCollum completed a market-research internship for a shopping-center developer. 

“My boss was a very sharp woman who got her PhD at Purdue,” McCollum says. “When I graduated, she gave me a full-time position in Charlotte, North Carolina. I packed up my little Toyota and headed there in 1997. I didn’t know a single soul or where I was going to live.”

By 2000, McCollum had worked her way up to VP of marketing and technology at a mixed-use real-estate and property-management firm. In 2002, she decided to get an advanced degree of her own. “I wanted a deeper understanding of all facets of business, including accounting, which was not my favorite subject at Purdue,” she says. “Plus, I’d always had the goal of starting my own business, and I thought an MBA was a perfect pathway to that.” 

McCollum continued down that pathway after her company downsized from around 300 people to fewer than a dozen. “I got a call from another real-estate company asking if I would work for them because they heard I might be on the market,” she says. “I told them, ‘No, but I’d love to help, and I will take you on as a client.’ That same week, my coworker struck out on her own and asked for help with a logo and website — and that was just the start.” 

McCollum took the timing as a sign that she was finally ready to found her own agency, which she named Yellow Duck Marketing. At first, she was the only employee. Soon, she hired a graphic designer and project manager, over time building her team to 11 people. In addition to branding and web design, the company also provides strategy, market research, and public relations. Their 100-plus client list includes commercial real-estate developers, municipalities, nonprofits, and hotels. “We’re really passionate about spaces and places,” McCollum says. 

She’s passionate about shaping her community too. “With Yellow Duck, I wanted to create a really great place for women to work,” McCollum says. “That’s not always controllable in larger corporate environments.”

In addition to running Yellow Duck — which the Charlotte mayor named Woman Business Enterprise of the Year in 2019 — she serves on the boards of multiple nonprofits and is in the process of adopting her second child with her husband, a fellow small-business owner. 

In fact, McCollum has a lot in common with her company’s namesake. “I went with Yellow Duck Marketing because I wanted to create a memorable name that made people smile,” she says. “But also, when ducks swim across a pond, they paddle like crazy underneath the water — yet they look smooth as glass on the surface.”