Julian Hearn is a British entrepreneur best known as the founder and chief marketing officer of Huel, the nutrition company built around convenient, plant-based, nutritionally complete food. His story attracts interest not only because Huel became a major consumer brand, but because Hearn did not begin with a conventional business-school route. According to his official biography, he was born in Buckinghamshire in 1972, left school at 16 with few qualifications, worked in a shop and then as a laborer, and then returned to education. He later graduated from university with a 2:1 and spent more than a decade progressing through marketing roles connected with brands including Starbucks, Tesco, Waitrose, MFI and Emap.
Before Huel, Hearn built Mash Up Media from a personal investment of £1,500. His official account says the company was generating more than £2.5 million in annual profit within three years and was sold to Internet Brands in 2011. He then launched Bodyhack, a health-focused project, before shifting his attention to what became Huel. The brand officially launched on 17 June 2015 from Hearn’s garage. He co-founded the company with registered nutritionist James Collier, whose background in nutrition and dietetics helped shape the product side of the business. Huel was designed as a practical way to provide balanced nutrition without the complexity Hearn had encountered while managing his own diet.
The scale of Huel’s growth is central to Julian Hearn’s public profile. His official biography says the company was bootstrapped to more than £40 million in revenue before taking a £20 million investment from Highland Europe in 2018, a deal that valued Huel at £220 million. The same profile later reported £214 million in revenue for the company’s ninth year while remaining EBITDA profitable. Huel still publicly identifies Hearn as its Founder and CMO. His career stands out for the transition from manual labor and an uncertain academic start to marketing, entrepreneurship, and building an internationally recognized nutrition brand. Huel’s press material also confirms that he lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife and son, although it does not publicly name them.
