As Senior Advisor and Chief Marketing Officer of The Burks Companies, Inc. (TBC), Mrs. Burks is primarily focused on business development, strategic partnerships and marketing communications. Mrs. Burks brings more than 25 years of experience as a corporate innovator and executive with a focus on business development, marketing, diversity/inclusion and external relations.

She began her career at General Mills, Inc., in Minneapolis, MN, where she rose through the ranks during her 20-year tenure and served in senior roles in Marketing, General Mills Foundation and Corporate Relations. She leveraged this experience to lead her own consulting firm and went on to develop numerous strategic marketing, government relations and ethnic community relations programs for such Fortune 500 companies as General Mills, Inc., Heineken USA, Daimler-Chrysler, Johnson & Johnson, American Airlines, ExxonMobil and many others.

Mrs. Burks also worked for Global Novations, LLC, a Global Talent Management Company headquartered in Boston, MA, for eight years in which she managed several senior level functions during her tenure, including marketing, strategic partnerships and market optimization. She also led the business development efforts to secure numerous high-profile clients in 19 industries—Automotive, Beauty/Cosmetics, Consumer Goods, Entertainment, Energy, Financial Services and Insurance, Food and Beverage, Government, Healthcare, Hospitality, Legal, Manufacturing, Media, Pharma/Biotech, Professional Services, Retail, Technology, Telecom and Utilities. Mrs. Burks’ professional record demonstrates her ability to build strategic alliances, build consensus among cross-functional groups, align corporate mission with social responsibility, and help companies achieve growth with strategic philanthropy and culturally relevant programs. She has an extensive network of high-profile national opinion leaders, business, foundation and bipartisan federal and state government contacts. Mrs. Burks holds a B.A. in Communications and Business Administration from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota and is a Humphrey Institute Public Policy Fellow from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. She serves on the board of numerous community, civic, state and national organizations. She is married to Mr. Frederick E. Burks and they reside in Atlanta, GA.