Suzanne E. Burks is an author, business leader, artist and founder, and the creator of The Renewal Effect™, a women-centered platform for women navigating significant life transitions. Her forthcoming book, The Renewal Effect™: A Five-Stage Framework for Women Ready to Begin Again, introduces The Five Rs Framework™: Recover, Renew, Reconnect, Rebuild and Rise.

Suzanne spent two decades at General Mills (1979–1999), holding progressively senior roles and culminating as Executive Director of Ethnic Community Relations. She later served as executive director of a community center in Minneapolis. Since 2012 she has been Senior Advisor to The Burks Companies, a multi-site environmental services and housekeeping company. She is the founder of Renewal Brands Group, LLC, the company behind The Renewal Effect™, and the founder of ThriveForward™ Women's Resilience and Recovery Network, a separate nonprofit organization.

Her civic and arts leadership includes service as past chair of the National Black Arts Festival and past chair of the City of Atlanta Commission on Women, and she completed Georgetown University's New Strategies Program. She is a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. That education informs the health and well-being dimensions of her work, which is educational, not clinical.

A writer and working artist, Suzanne is the author of Creativity Unleashed: A Guide to Flourish Amidst Chaos and Pressure and the founder of her own art and design studio. Her creative practice shapes TRE's conviction that making something can help a woman see her life more clearly.

The Renewal Effect™ grew from Suzanne's own experience. Recovery gave her stability and honesty, and it opened larger questions about identity, health, relationships, work, money, creativity and purpose. That experience shaped her central conviction: recovery is the foundation, and renewal is the goal. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.