Sharon R. Burns
Chief Information Officer

Email: sburns at macfound dot org

Sharon Burns is the Chief Information Officer at the Foundation. In this position, she leads the Foundation's Information Services Department and is responsible for the strategic direction and implementation of the Foundation's worldwide information systems network. Burns blends traditional technologies with Web 2.0 and social networking tools to provide a wide range of collaboration tools to MacArthur staff. Burns is part of a Foundation committee on technology grantmaking and recently completed a virtual world video to help colleagues and others understand the capacities of this new technology.

Burns came to the Foundation in 1998 from the City of Chicago where she served as the First Deputy CIO in the Department of Business and Information Services. Her responsibilities included directing the mainframe systems, Operations, LAN, WAN and programming groups to support 42 City of Chicago departments. She was also responsible for project management of all Year 2000 initiatives and has extensive in outsourcing.

Burns' civic affiliations include being a board member of the Metro Chicago Information Center.

Burns received her B.S. in Accounting from Northern Michigan University's School of Business in Marquette, Michigan.