Hello! Bonjour!

I’m Julie Lespérance – experienced HR professional, Startup Advisor and the CEO & Founder of Shine HR.

Raised by entrepreneur parents, I’ve always been fascinated with communication and how we connect to accomplish great things! I was only 15 when my school’s guidance counselor suggested I blend my love of people and my passion for business to pursue a career in HR. I’ve never looked back!

I’m fluent in English, French and “Entrepreneur”. I’m on a mission to make HR accessible and relatable to early-stage founders so they can fully enjoy their startup journey, alongside an engaged team they love working with.

Ready? Let’s go!

Most of Shine HR’s valued client relationships began with a call from a caring, people-first leader seeking confidential guidance to help address a common workplace challenge — from bridging pesky communication gaps to addressing time-sucking workplace drama and managing big change.

About Shine HR

Since 2007, we’ve partnered with over 60 startup leaders to co-create their first HR foundations and cultivate great places to work.

Shine HR specializes in delivering startup-specific HR skills to Founders seeking to take the guesswork out of HOW to scale their business and their teams, with confidence and ease. Accessing early-stage HR guidance is a game-changer for people-focused startup founders looking to scale. Our startup HR services are consistently top rated by Founders, VCs and Startup Ecosystem partners.  

Scaling your business with the RIGHT team in place is more straightforward than you think… I promise.

Our values inform our approach

We respect your leadership.

You know your business. We know HR. Our game-changing solutions are authentic, sustainable, and best of all, co-created with YOU! Each project is as unique as the clients we have the privilege of working with.

We understand people. We mean business.

With decades of applied HR and executive-level business experience, we see the whole picture. When your employees are engaged and involved in your company’s success – everyone benefits!

We communicate honestly. Always.

We engage confidently and openly. We highlight the good stuff and can be trusted to find a respectful way to communicate the harder-to-hear truths. We will never rob a client of an opportunity to grow.

We deliver in a meaningful way.

We listen. We establish a clear understanding of what success looks like for you. We check in. We provide options but never compromise on quality. We adapt. We deliver — and it feels like a shared success — every time!

We make HR fun!

For real! Our passion for HR is contagious. Within minutes of engaging with us, clients know they’re in for something special – a different kind of HR. You don’t have to take our word for it, see what our clients say…

“We learned SO much from our work with Julie/Shine HR. As the CEO of small company, I had some apprehensions about engaging in formal HR practices. But our work with Julie was fun (yes, really!), informative, and totally raised the bar of our organization and has impacted how we approach all aspects of team & culture.”

Sheena Russell
Founder & CEO, Made with Local