Julie L. Rasmussen is a trained Sovietologist, serial entrepreneur, and the first female regional President in the history of Mary Kay Cosmetics. Fluent in Russian, she grew up in McLean, Virginia, where her father worked as an analyst in the Trade and Economics division of the CIA, studying the Soviet economy and its defense capabilities. She received her undergraduate degree in Russian language and literature from the University of Virginia, a master's degree in international affairs and Soviet studies from Columbia University, and her MBA from Oxford. In college, she studied in Moscow and worked as an interpreter for Ted Turner during the 1986 Goodwill Games. Her first job after UVA was helping produce a white-water rafting documentary in Siberia for ABC TV.

She began her business career on Park Avenue at a boutique merchant bank, advising Fortune 50 companies including RJR Nabisco, Kodak, Johnson & Johnson, ADM, and Chevron on joint venture projects with the Gorbachev government. In 1992, she moved from Manhattan to Moscow with two suitcases and a job offer from Mary Kay Cosmetics. Over the next seven years, she built the largest direct sales operations in the former Soviet Union from scratch, scaling the company in Russia from zero to over $100 million in sales in just five years, creating economic opportunity for tens of thousands of Russian women during one of the most turbulent periods in recent Russian history. Her unprecedented success led to her promotion to President of the European Region, the first woman in company history to achieve this position. She was both the youngest member and the only woman on the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia and was voted its Businessperson of the Year. She went on to launch a private security company, a chain of espresso bars, and the Hertz rental car Master Franchise for Russia, eventually becoming its Chairman, CEO, and majority owner. She and her Russian husband, Philippe, also developed and built several housing communities for middle class Russians in the Moscow suburbs, representing Sotheby's International Real Estate and Christie's Great Estates.

After retiring from Mary Kay at thirty-seven to run her own companies, she divided her time between London and Moscow before returning to the United States to raise her twin sons. She still owns property in Moscow but has been unable to return since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She currently lives in the mountains of Colorado.