Lauren Brooks Email and Phone Number

Currently, I oversee the entire data lifecycle from aggregation to reporting, ensuring accuracy and relevance for the Ion. I generate comprehensive reports on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis, revealing trends in our current data. Collaborating closely with executive stakeholders, I gather requirements and streamline processes to align with organizational goals. All the while, I formulate best practices and strategies for data management and training, fostering a culture driven by data insights. Alongside these responsibilities, I manage our team's CRM (HubSpot), safeguarding valuable customer data and optimizing its utilization for business growth.

During my time as the Program Administrator, I supported the program and events team in addition to collecting, analyzing, and reporting data to provide valuable insights for decision-making. I excelled during this time designing and implementing efficient processes for data monitoring and event tracking for our team. I was able to keep the team well informed of the success of the events to build on the Ion's Programs Portfolio, sharing key success metrics with relevant teams on a regular basis. For every project, I ensured collaboration was at the forefront of our efforts to ensure alignment of goals across different teams, contributing to the achievement of desired outcomes. During this time, I took on more responsibility for managing our CRM (HubSpot) to create a single course of truth that our team could depend on.

As a Program & Events Coordinator I work diligently alongside the Program & Events Manager to help design, plan, and execute both public and private events that for Station Houston / Ion Houston. Our main focus for 2020 is to bring new and exciting pilot programming for our new home come 2021 - Ion Houston.The Ion is a nucleus for innovation in Houston, fostering a community and culture where entrepreneurs and corporations come together to solve some of the world’s greatest problems. This 270,000-square foot structure is designed to bring Houston’s entrepreneurial, corporate and academic communities together into collaborative spaces and programs.

During this final year at the food bank, I found love for Project Management to bring together various departmental projects and curiosity to challenge myself to how I can contribute to a larger picture of change management.At the start of my role as Project Design Manager I had the joy of designing markets for the Houston Food Bank market network. I created processes for designing markets, budgeting, and ordering the necessary items, market set up and execution, and customer services with market directors. Eventually, I took on the main PM roles with external consultants for inter-departmental projects. All the while growing my knowledge for PM and developing an IT Project Plan to track project requests to project close out. During this time I drafted the assignments and supervised one employee for the VISTA Program based at the Houston Food Bank. I managed her daily actions at the office and provided guidance to her projects geared towards change management, internal/external feedback loops and team development.

As the program coordinator for the Houston Food Bank I was focused on building health partnership building with local organizations to increase food access, health and wellness education, and case management. This program included a comprehensive curriculum that I worked to update alongside UTPhysicians. I was the sole trainer to future Core Connections coaches and worked alongside Legna & Associates to develop a thorough training for coaches to develop the necessary skills and confidence to conduct classes.

My main responsibility included training health professionals of the implications of food insecurity that severely impact the public health sector. Additionally, I was tasked with creating the first ever nutrition policy for future implementation across the Houston Food Bank operations and distributions. This including convening a multi-sector workgroup to discuss language and content to be included and approved for future approval.

This year of service with AmeriCorps is dedicated to addressing a serious issue prevalent throughout out our world -- Hunger. During my time as a VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America) I am working to address the topic of food insecurity from both a clinical and nonprofit point of view. Working alongside the Houston Food Bank and the Food for Change Team, I will be education health professionals about the need for food insecurity screenings within their daily practices, evaluating current practices of the food bank in their efforts to increase their distribute nutritious meals, and the working alongside the nutrition ed team.

During my time as a Category Management (CatMan) Intern for frozen fruits and vegetables with Sysco I worked to create a valuable tool for both CatMan and Sourcing. I worked diligently to create a two harvest charts/calendar to help both parties plan when to reach out to suppliers obtain certain products to distribute. One calendar was item focused and used color coding to show where in the world these items were sources from while the second calendar gave a snapshot of a year of harvesting to help guide where their efforts should be focused to with each new month.

As a TA for the Psychology department I worked closely with the Statistics professors to help extend the teachings of class to outside the classroom. I helped students with homework, was a immediate source of information for student questions, as well as a corrected homework for the professor. This position gave me a new perspective on the work I was doing as a Psychology Major as well as introduced me to a leadership role I was previously unfamiliar with.