It gives me a great deal of pleasure to announce Julie Rogers is the new director of marketing for SEMI Americas.

Julie is no stranger to the ESD Alliance community. Our members, friends and others from the system and semiconductor design community know her from our many events and member activities. For more than three years prior to her new role at SEMI, Julie was director of marketing and operations for the ESD Alliance where we all enjoyed getting to know her and soaking up her energy and enthusiasm.

The move to SEMI doesn’t mean that she’s bidding our community farewell. Fortunately for us, she will work with both SEMI Americas and the ESD Alliance marketing our vision and strategy, including brand recognition and increasing event attendance. 

Yes, a huge responsibility and I can’t think of anyone more suited with her experience, cheerfulness and energy.  Julie’s abundance of energy could come from her various athletic pursuits –– kiteboarding, running and skiing.

Julie will be at the ESD Alliance Booth #100 in the foyer during DVCon U.S. Monday, February 25, through Thursday, February 28, at the DoubleTree Hotel in San Jose, Calif. Please stop by to congratulate her and learn more about our charter, programs, initiatives and events.

Now, let’s hear from Julie about her career and her new role at SEMI.

Your career has been varied and took you into several different markets, including medical. What attracted you to the semiconductor industry? How is it different from the medical industry? How is it similar?

For 19 years, I wrote grants to medical device and pharmaceutical companies for Dignity Health, now CommonSpirit Health, to help fund its physician education programs. During this process, I realized the acceleration in AI and IoT was going to positively change patient care through less invasive products, improving diagnosis, management and treatment with new technologies.

Device manufacturers can bring these products to market in a shorter time period versus traditional pharmaceutical and medical devices, greatly impacting effectiveness, cost, treatment and positive outcomes –– both in and out of the hospital setting.

These new devices would not exist without the semiconductor industry. I welcomed the chance to join the ESD Alliance and become involved in the industry that was driving these new products and changes that I was seeing from my work in the medical field.

What is your charter as SEMI’s director of Americas marketing? 

My role is to ensure SEMI America’s marketing vision and strategy is aligned with our global message to maximize effectiveness in member communication, brand recognition, new member outreach, event promotion and attendance for an overall portfolio of 40 plus events.

It is an exciting time at SEMI as we are growing through new partnerships and mergers, expanding our strength throughout the entire semiconductor ecosystem that provides value to members for further collaboration and business development.

I am working with a great team to build and create increased awareness and improve member engagement and satisfaction for all the SEMI activities.  We have a new website, an exciting inaugural event –– ES Design West co-locating with SEMICON West July 9-11, 2019 –– and many other industry events to look forward to in 2019.

What’s your current priority? 

With all this growth, we need to hire a Marketing Manager and Marketing Specialist within our team. They will further promote our initiatives, increase our social media presence, provide content and graphics for our websites and oversee the production of event collateral signage, flyers, promotional materials, video/photo production, and more.

You came to SEMI last year when the ESD Alliance became a SEMI Strategic Association Partner. How do you see SEMI and the ESD Alliance working together?

Since joining SEMI, we’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response from SEMI’s global community. There is tremendous interest in design and many requests to take our messages and community to the various regions.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend SEMICON Japan 2018, ISS and FLEX/MSTC. I will go to SEMICON China 2019 where design topics will be featured and the ESD Alliance will host a high-level executive reception featuring several design member companies at this 100,000 plus attendee event.

We provide the platform and assistance to make valuable connections through collaboration and development of the design ecosystem in these regions and encourage participation in our Americas activities.  We are working with our members to help build relationships and maximize the SEMI network of successful companies.

In addition to your new role, you are the chair of the ES Design West Advisory Council. How is planning going? What can we expect when it opens in July as a co-located SEMICON West event? 

We have a dynamic group of industry veterans as members of the Advisory Council to identify current topics and expert speakers. They are planning a blockbuster conference agenda covering every corner of the electronics systems design ecosystem, from electronic design and automation and semiconductor electronic systems to intellectual property, embedded systems and software, machine learning, security and more.

I encourage you to check out our TechTALK and Meet the Experts opportunities. Planning is going well and the program is nearly complete. We’ll have sessions on More than Moore, Silicon Design in the Cloud, Security, Design for Low Energy, Machine Learning, Advanced Applications and AI & EDA.

While we are a technology-driven industry, one focus for the event is to highlight the commercial successes and applications of the technologies that drive the system and semiconductor design ecosystem. In addition to this, we will look forward to emerging new trends in our industry. And, stay tuned to learn about an exciting evening event.

A bit more about Julie:

Julie represents SEMI in industry forums through committee positions for World Wide Women in Electronic Design (WWED), Wit (Women in Technology) & Wisdom, and the DAC Heart of Technology (HOT) committee. She serves as chair of Dignity Health Community Board Mercy McMahon Terrace.

In the 19 years Julie managed her own marketing firm, she specialized in physician education symposia for her long-time client, Dignity Health, now CommonSpirit Health.  Prior to starting her own firm, Julie was the director of marketing for Weintraub Tobin, a business and litigation law firm, and the Sacramento, Calif., Regional marketing director for the American Cancer Society. She worked for more than eight years in television with NBC affiliate KCRA-TV and ABC affiliate KOVR-TV in Sacramento.