Mike Burns

Mike Burns is a seasoned executive, coach, and former Army Officer who has over 30 years of experience in strategic leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion, self-assessments, culture shifting, and organizational behavior.

He is the Co-Founder of The Burns Brothers, Inc., a culture-driven, full-service, integrated agency that designs data and insights-driven strategies and solutions that create long lasting impactful change.

Prior to forming The Burns Brothers, Mike served as the Chief Diversity Officer of Conduent, a $5B technology-focused services business. He also had the privilege of running the company’s largest business line and manage a P&L with revenues of almost $1B, generated by the organization’s 25,000 employees across North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean Islands.

Before joining Conduent, Mike served as the Chief Diversity Officer of Citigroup and led the global diversity function for all of its Wall Street businesses, where his mission was to drive diversity and inclusion for one of the world’s largest banks. He also served as the COO of the technology company, Medical Information Records LLC, named the 2014 Dell-Intel healthcare start-up company of the year.

Mr. Burns joined Corporate America after serving 13 years in the US Army, initially as a helicopter pilot and then as a civil-military advisor with the 101st Airborne Division in support of operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In these roles, he had the privilege of leading over 100 brave and motivated American and Iraqi Soldiers on difficult, yet incredibly impactful missions. He concluded his military career as the Head of Diversity Recruitment and Enrollment for the United States Military Academy at West Point.

His corporate and military journey has directly shaped his approach to leading, learning, and living. He is passionate about helping people and organizations successfully maximize their skills, passions, brands, and networks to accomplish tough and complex problems. He feels that true value is only realized when WHO you are and WHAT you do coexist.

Mike has a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Notre Dame, a Master of Business Management and Leadership from Webster University, a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and he is a Columbia University-trained Executive Coach.