Worcester Business Journal

18 Worcester Business Journal | November 23, 2020 | wbjournal.com W NOT JUST ANY BUSINESS. We're committed to creating a plan that's right for your business. WE HEAR YOU. SEE HOW. tuftshealthplan.com/wehearyou YO U R H E A LT H P L A N S H O U L D F I T YO U R B U S I N E S S . F O C U S H E A L T H C A R E and host of e Resilient Entrepreneur podcast. Mercier, who worked with the MetroWest Women's Network, considers Becker Collins a good friend. "She does not balk in the face of adversity," Mercier said. Eventually, when DiBenedetto began looking to hire a second-in-command for Vision, with the goal to eventually hand the company over to that person, she tapped Becker Collins. e pair spent 18 months preparing Becker Collins to take over so that DiBenedetto could retire. "Julia is the embodiment of everything I wanted Vision Advertising to have as a leader," DiBenedetto said. "And she is a really fantastic complement to what I've built and who I am as a leader. We don't step on each other's toes. We work together perfectly. She is strong, she is logical, she is methodical, she's unflappable, she is tenacious. And nothing scares her." Stepping back and finding balance Becker Collins had surgery in May, during which doctors removed her thyroid and, upon discovering the cancer had spread, some of her lymph nodes. She then began a three-month medical leave from Vision. Aer pathology tests showed the cancer was more aggressive than doctors initially realized, she began radiation in July. e latter, Becker Collins said, is awful. "I don't know how to explain other than it's the most terrible thing I think I've ever been through," she said. "And I've had some terrible medical stuff." It'll take a year for Becker Collins' body to recover once she's done with radiation treatment, she said, and as of publication, she's not sure when that will be. During her last round of scans in August, doctors located a new mass, but also saw it had been hit by the radiation treatment she'd already received. As it stands, her doctors are tracking it to see how her illness evolves. As of now, Becker Collins is in what is supposed to be a healing stage so that she can withstand another round of radiation if she needs one. "It's a careful balance of [needing to] destroy your body with treatment, but also [letting] your body be healthy enough to accept the treatment," Becker Collins said As this plays out, and when she's not working, she's drilling away at her other passion: long-distance running. She currently plans to run a marathon on Dec. 6, the day she was set to run a race which has since been canceled. "I'm going to do it on the Boston Marathon route," she said. (Shortly before her interview with WBJ, she'd completed an 18-mile long run as part of her training.) Becker Collins began long-distance running at the end of 2018 and has since become a devoted athlete, not just according to her, but to the people that know her. (e sport comprises the bulk of her Instagram account content.) Making due without her DiBenedetto, who is currently on Maui and remains majority owner of Vision, has since stepping back from the company published a self-help book on happiness – "e Six Habits: Practical Tools for Bringing Your Dreams to Life" – and reimagined herself as a happiness coach. She never thought she'd have to step back into an active role at Vision aer she retired and le Becker Collins in control, she said, but when she learned her protegee was sick, her return as an active CEO wasn't even a question. "e experience of jumping back into Vision Advertising aer being away for awhile was both exhilarating and surprising," DiBenedetto said. "Exhilarating in that it was wonderful to see everything that Julia had put in place and that everything was running very well without my involvement. It was amazing to see all the fruits of her labor right in front of me, in detail." Her return was surprising, DiBenedetto said, because when she le the company in 2018, she was feeling burnt out. But when she came back, she found Vision was teeming with energy as the staff took on COVID-19 and the way that it was impacting its clients. e agency serves clients in an array of industries, both in the business-to- business and business-to-consumer sectors, including restaurants, retail shops, business brokerages, insurance agencies, manufacturers, law firms and accounting firms. "As marketers, we are really seeing the inner workings of all of these businesses that we support and their needs have changed this year to be … more focused on business strategy," DiBendetto said. "at's something we've always been capable of but not what we lead with." Continued from page 17

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