Julie Andersen is an activist who founded Shark Angels, a nonprofit organization dedicated to shark conservation.

Biography

Andersen has always loved ocean life. She began diving in 1995. For more than 14 years, she worked in advertising in Chicago and owned a successful marketing business that worked with companies like Porsche and Citibank. In 2007, at a film screening in New York, she met director Rob Stewart. Soon after, she sold her business, her car, and her home and moved to South Africa to become a shark conservationist. That same year, she started the non-profit Shark Angels. She worked with leaders from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the Save Our Seas Foundation to challenge the belief that sharks are dangerous, meat-eating animals. Shark Angels was created to address the harm caused by the shark finning industry. Since then, Andersen has secretly traveled to more than 20 countries to reveal illegal shark fin trade. She has appeared on CNN, the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and NatGeo Wild.

In 2012, she was named a Sea Hero by Scuba Diving Magazine. In 2014, she and film maker Paul Wildman made a short documentary called Black Swan. The film shows Andersen swimming with an oceanic white tip shark, one of the world’s most dangerous shark species. Andersen also started the non-profits Shark Savers and, with Stewart, United Conservationists (UC). One of UC’s early efforts was the #FinFree campaign, which aimed to teach people about the dangers of illegal shark finning. Stewart died in 2017 while making the documentary Sharkwater Extinction. Andersen, diver Brock Cahill, and others helped Stewart’s parents complete and share the film.

Andersen has worked as a consultant for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, PEW, and WildAid. She is the Director of Global Marketing for Johnson Outdoors (SCUBAPRO and Subgear brands) and a member of the PADI Diving Society. As of 2018, Andersen lives in California.