Our Story
We are Niko and Karo, two siblings and a second generation of coffee growers. Our father, Octavio, started in the coffee business in the 90s, with our mother, Angela. With much illusion, he built beautiful houses - in harmony with the traditional coffee landscape, and started producing coffee.
Our father passed suddenly in 2002, a big tragedy for our family. Niko took on the baton in 2005 when he was still very young. That year Karo moved back to Colombia. Our mother backed our project up. The new JULIA was starting…
In our early 20s we started learning about coffee production and running a farm. Since 2006 we obtained our Rainforest Alliance Certification, given our belief that this was the way in which we wanted to produce our coffee. Niko is passionate about coffee production, and Karo is about rural development. We are all deeply committed to sustainable practices.
Besides coffee, at JULIA you can find banana and plantain plants in our coffee fields. We also have important areas of protected native forest, hiking trails, and watersheds that we preserve. When we are renovating coffee fields we plant seasonal corn or beans. You can also find incredible fruit trees including guava, papaya, guanabana, avocado, orange, mandarin, and lemon.
Niko
Finance and Operations
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Hard-worker, innovative, and committed, Niko is a self-made specialty coffee producer with over 15 years of field experience. In Colombia he has taken several courses on agriculture, cattle, and innovate production, which he tests at JULIA. This knowledge and iteration has helped take our product to the next level.
Niko is passionate about the specialty coffee process. He lives between Cali and the farm, enjoys soccer and has two handsome boys.
Karo
Strategy and Communications
Critical, strategic thinker, integral and resilient. Karo specializes in rural development, gender equality, and the food system from agriculture to nutrition. She studied Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She has an MBA and also a Master of Public Administration in Development Practice from Columbia University in the City of New York. She is currently a board member of several foundations in Colombia.
Karo loves running, yoga, nutrition and traveling, and lives between Bogota and New York City with her son.
Karla
Operations
Supportive, sensitive and detail oriented, Karla supports all Operations and general management at JULIA. She has over nine years of professional experience in Human Resources and Management including recruitment and organizational development. Karla has a B.A. in Psychology from Universidad San Buenaventura in Cali (Colombia) and has taken several courses in Human Resources and Social Conflict and Inclusion.
Karla loves cooking and doing crafts with her two boys. She enjoys yoga and sports.
