Susan Burns is a Strategic Talent Acquisition and Management Consultant, Thought Leader and Principal at Talent Synchronicity.

Over the last several years that I have read thought leadership articles, listened to her presentations, or heard of fellow colleagues speak glowingly of her capabilities I have been impressed consistently with her public figure. It must be said, however, that having dined, commiserated, and corresponded with Susan Burns, the person, that I admire her multi-faceted personality, conviction, and brilliance as a candid, thought-provoking, socially conscious friend and colleague. She is passionate in all things in life, and it is omnipresent when she evangelizes architecture aspects of Strategic Talent Planning, employment branding, and metrics that we as an industry excel through her contributions and it is in her valued friendship, that her gifts never cease to bring value. I would be the president of her fan club, however, the competition among fellow admirers may very well preclude my position, but it is suffice to say that we all see the value proposition in Susan.

Susan Burns founded Talent Synchronicity to pursue her interest and passion for talent strategies and their alignment with core business functions and processes. Enabling success by further enhancing the essential relationship between business and talent to advantage companies is grounded in Susan’s core philosophy. Susan has leveraged technology, branding, P & L experience and alignment with strategic business directives to create intrinsic value in recruitment and talent initiatives. Susan’s recognized expertise in the talent space has allowed her to deliver strategic advantages in developing sustainable world-class talent acquisition and management functions.

Most recently, Susan was Worldwide Talent Acquisition Leader with Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, the second largest privately held PR firm. Susan was responsible for developing the talent attraction and acquisition function, team leadership, and workforce planning. Enabling success in these areas further enhanced the essential relationship between business and talent to advantage this leading strategic communications agency in time-to-fill and planning methodologies.

Prior to Waggener Edstrom, Susan was Operating Vice President of Employment Initiatives and College Relations for Federated Department Stores (now Macy’s Inc). Her contributions included selection, development, deployment and utilization or recruitment technologies, employment branding, and corresponding talent-centric initiatives through education and alignment of key constituents. Susan established a platform for continued growth and expansion of talent attraction and acquisition strategies through her leadership in developing and expanding the company’s online branded employment platform Retailology.com, which included macysJOBS.com and bloomingdalesJOBS.com, among others.

Susan has consistently and effectively demonstrated skills in project management, resource utilization and allocation, strategic and workforce planning, recruitment initiatives, sales management, customer service and operations management. Susan achieves objectives through a creative and resourceful approach to planning, development, and implementation. http://www.linkedin.com/in/susanburns

ERE GLOBAL AMSTERDAM: Susan Burns Co-Presents “Strategic Talent Planning Workshop - Developing Synergies Across Six Integrated Elements”

Recommendations for Susan Burns (*Partial)

“Susan is a professional with a deep understanding of all three legs of the corporate HR platform: business strategy, HR process and leading-edge technology. Her depth of insight into ways to make HR a strategic business asset are both unique and extraordinary. It has been a real pleasure working with (and learning from) her.” (January 7, 2005)

Jeff “JJ” Hunter, Senior Director, HR Business Solutions, Electronic Arts, Inc

“I had the pleasure and honor of working with Susan for over a year while she led our team at Waggener Edstrom. Susan has tremendous passion for the recruiting industry and an amazing approach to talent acquisition, more so than anyone I have worked with or for in my 10+ years of recruiting. A good leader and manager is one you can learn from and challenges you everyday to act and think outside the box. She has a unique way of looking at talent and how to acquire talent that continues to blow me away. One of her biggest strengths is her ability to share not only her passion for recruiting, but to teach and inspire passion in others. If you have the opportunity to work with Susan you will see her collaboration, strategic vision and ability to look at things with kid glasses and make a difference. I highly respect her and recommend her to anyone looking for an amazing leader or consultant for their business.” (November 12, 2007)

Jodi Moore, Senior Staffing Partner, Waggener Edstrom

“Susan is a senior level, strategic, visionary thinker in the area of talent; She is extremely networked and always aware of the cutting edge innovations in the industry. While she managed our team at Waggener Edstrom she used this expertise to build our skills and implement new recruiting strategies. She spearheaded many initiatives that had an immediate impact on our staffing work - day to day and long term. As a leader Susan has a lot of integrity and was able to find and develop the potential in her staff.” (August 9, 2007)

Shine Thomas, Senior Staffing Partner, Waggener Edstrom

“I had the honor of working with Susan at Waggener Edstrom. She brought a fresh perspective to the agency and tons of innovative ideas to step up our talent attraction and engagment efforts as well as workforce planning. She’s super connected and (more importantly) respected in the industry.” (August 9, 2007)

Nikole Hunt, Staffing Partner, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide

“I’ve worked with Susan Burns for a little over a year now and I can say that she has the most strategic, forward-thinking and fresh approach to talent acquisition out of any leader that I’ve worked with in the industry. I’ve always said that I wanted to work with someone who I could learn from, who wasn’t just pushing old ideas and who would challenge me in new ways. Susan has always managed to challenge me. She has a unique way of getting you to think about things differently. Susan is also amazingly connected in the industry and the relationships she has helped me form with thought leaders has been invaluable. She is an avid reader and spots trends and innovations before most people have adopted the known innovations. The talent acquisition community has mostly agreed that finding people with passion for their field is a key performance indicator. I’ve met few people with as much passion for our industry as Susan. She thinks way outside the box, outside the organization and outside the industry to come up with advances in our field that are truly innovating the way organizations acquire talent. Most notable is her work with retailology.com prior to joining Waggener Edstrom and the workforce planning work she is currently designing at our organization. If you work in our industry I hope you have an opportunity to meet Susan, collaborate with her, brainstorm, have her tell you to put on your kid glasses or just have a quick brainstorm with her. I think you will find that you walk away feeling like you have learned something new.” (May 16, 2007)

Steve Fogarty, Senior Sourcing Strategist, Waggener Edstrom

“Susan Burns is one of the most talented leaders in the talent management industry today — smart, innovative, passionate, dedicated, and able to see and create solutions where most people can only identify challenges. Quite simply, she helped to make us better and more innovative as a company/partner, every step of the way. Our partnership in developing WetFeet Recruiter’s Enterprise Interview Scheduling system, which delivered industry-first innovations in many areas, is just one example of one of her strongest personal assets: Susan gets results. The passion, energy, focus and commitment she brings to her work is simply extraordinary. What a joy to recommend her!” (October 11, 2007)

Gary Alpert, CEO, WetFeet Inc.

“Susan is an exceptional leader. She is a dedicated individual to staying the course and ensuring everyone has a common vision. Working with numerous personalities is not a challenge to Susan; it is a required ingredient to the success of the project. She ensures everyone knows their role in the process and is always willing to lend support and guidance. She maintains a positive outlook, even during the most difficult of times. She is a joy to work with.” (August 13, 2007)

Mark McDevitt, Human Resource Director, Macy’s Florida

“”My position allows me the opportunity to work with representatives from over 80 corporate partners so I have seen the integration of collegiate recruiting programs in all stages of development as they pertain to a broader, strategic talent plan. I had the privilege of working with Susan in building the Federated/SIFE partnership and found her experience, knowledge and insights into talent sourcing and placement to be refreshing. She has a greater understanding of work force planning, positioning and sourcing than I have seen in almost any other partner that I have worked with. Susan is direct and candid in her approach to dealing with partners. She makes it easy to build a quality relationship that is mutually beneficial. It’s an honor to recommend her to others looking for a strong, professional and incredibly knowledgeable partner.”” (August 12, 2007)

Jerad Boyd, Regional Vice President, Development, Students In Free Enterprise

“Susan was a leader, educator and innovator in recruitment and technology for Federated Department Stores. With Susan’s leadership, a career website and candidate database was developed for the first time at Macy’s. This effort took a great deal of commitment from Susan to win the corporations support. The end results has been an extremely successful website and strong talent pool for the company. In addition, Susan managed and directed the Federated brand on college campuses. With her efforts, we were able to successfully develop very strong campus partnerships resulting in Federated being an employer of choice for students. Susan always is on the cutting edge of technology, understands the market climate, and always challenges the status quo. Susan was a true mentor to me.” (August 11, 2007)

Tara Wescott, College Relations Manager, Macy’s West

“Susan’s drive to produce effective change and create buy-in across the organization has enabled FDS to achieve rapid user acceptance, delivering increased productivity and reduced costs. Her commitment to creating a superior recruiting process has advanced FDS’s competitiveness in the labor market. By ensuring an effective and productive environment, she has fostered growth across the board.” (June 30, 2004)

Ben Chuba, Associate, McKinsey & Company