I had the opportunity to work with Jen for 7 years while a Director in Coffee at Fair Trade USA. Jen was an integral part of managing strategic partnerships with Keurig, Dunkin’ Donuts and Whole Foods (Allegro). The success of these partnerships relied heavily on traceability, transparency, and adherence to ever expanding responsible sourcing standards and guidelines.
Jen’s ability to extract the most important components out of complex and often, complicated certification, traceability and impact assessment processes; allowed these same partners to focus on growth opportunities. In addition to simplifying, Jen also possesses the ability to identity the people, processes, and tracking mechanisms necessary to deliver innovative approaches and measure progress.
After working with Jen on these key partnerships, I brought her in as a consultant to develop unique solutions for delivering enhanced product offerings and defining the implementation pathways. These product offerings remain the greatest opportunity for sustained growth in the future.
Jen’s combination of business strategy, technical data understanding and project management make her the best candidate to take on your most pressing business needs. She will identify the most holistic approach that delivers value and mutual benefit to all parties by first ensuring internal stakeholder buy-in, establishing a common vision forward, and putting in place the tactical steps to get there.
Jennifer is a strong strategic thinker who tackles new challenges with structure, curiosity, and enthusiasm. I thoroughly enjoyed having her as part of my team where she emerged as a natural leader. She utilized her experience in finance, certification, and project management to solve organizational problems creatively, cost-effectively, and with buy-in from those affected by the solutions that were developed.
When stretched too thin with both time and personnel resources, look no further than to Jennifer Burkett for a comprehensive, creative and professional solution!
With great confidence and relief I was able to hand off a large scale project to Jennifer knowing not only that the completion deadline would be met, but the end result would be an excellent product. For several years our company lacked a comprehensive new hire onboarding and training program. Jennifer deftly stepped in and met with me to ascertain the scope and user requirements of the project and with a quick turn around presented us with a detailed project plan and timeline. Through her research, employee focus group work, curriculum development and training pilot, and then refinement through surveys and additional focus groups feedback, we know have an onboarding training program that I am proud for each new employee to experience. I can honestly say that what we had envisioned for years was made possible by Jennifer Burkett.
Jennifer is easy to work with and flexible in adding in additional requirements to the scope of a project. She is a thought partner who through her lens of understanding a larger, strategic vision can help shape a project so that the end result fills its highest potential. Her high attention to detail and her extraordinary organization skills keep not only her, but also you as a client on track to meet all deadlines. As an example of Jennifer’s creative skills, she recognizes that not all people learn in the same way or will always make time to attend training, and as a result our onboard training program is multifaceted. It consists not only of in person new hire training sessions that she developed and also facilitated, but onboarding New Hire and Manager kits designed to guide each new employee and the respective manager through all of the needed steps within the first 90 days of employment to ensure a smooth, knowledgeable and fun start. Jennifer also created an online version of these kits through the project based software used by our company so that employees, their managers, and human resource personnel can track progress and guarantee that all new employees get the support needed for a successful start.
We were so fortunate to have use of Jennifer Burkett’s knowledge, creativity, and impeccable project management skills. What seemed a daunting task soon became a much needed program reality for us, and one that is easily maintained and continuously implemented. I so enjoyed working with Jennifer and with out any hesitation would collaborate with her again!