Jada Jenkins Reese is a product of both St. Louis Public and Normandy Schools and is a graduate of Normandy Senior High School. She received her B.S. Mechanical Engineer degree from the University of Missouri-Rolla and MBA from Washington University’s Executive MBA program. Jada is also a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources.

Jada’s engineering career included General Motors, Ralston Purina and Anheuser-Busch.  

Jada changed careers as a result of being recruited for the Managing Director of the St. Louis affiliate of INROADS. INROADS recruits, trains and provides internships for high caliber students of color and focuses on expanding the pool of diversity talent for Corporate America. This experience cemented Jada’s passion for career development and organization effectiveness.

Anheuser-Busch recruited Jada to lead the Corporate Staffing department where she created the Anheuser-Busch “recruitment brand.”  Jada also worked on A-B’s diversity strategy and managed substance testing as well as served as an HR Generalist.  

Jada later served as Vice President of Human Resources at CPI Corp., owner and operator of Sears Portrait Studios, initiating people centric efforts inclusive of managerial empowerment, employee engagement and succession planning. Jada also served as VP and Regional HR Director for HOK, a St. Louis based Architectural firm.

Currently Jada is a Director of HR Operations for BJC HealthCare, where, as part of the Human Resources team, she focuses on design, delivery and execution of key Human Resource initiatives to the BJC HealthCare organization.

Her volunteer efforts are children focused as she enjoys the spirit and courage of our future leaders.

Jada’s honors and activities include the University of Missouri – Rolla’s Women in Engineering and Science Hall of Fame and the Academy of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Life member National Association of African American Human Resources professionals, Board member and Secretary for Professional Association of Women (POW), Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Jada is a graduate of Leadership St. Louis and is currently a fellow in the St. Louis Business Diversity Initiative.

Jada and her husband Michael Reese have been married for more than 20 years and have two children: a son, Michael Jr. (21), who attends Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH majoring in Public Relations/Communications and daughter, Jayce (19), who is a first year medical student in the six year School of Medicine at the University of Missouri – Kansas City.  They are members of Grace Church and reside in Florissant.