Board Member

Jody Banks
BS ’93, MBA ‘03
Director, Talent Operations & Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
The Chartis Group

Jody Banks earned a bachelor's degree in Accounting at Purdue University. During her undergraduate years at Purdue, she was named the first student member of the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. Following her service on the Commission for Higher Education, she was appointed by Gov. Evan Bayh to be the first African American woman to hold a seat on the Purdue University Board of Trustees. She also served as the president of Alpha Kappa Alpha and various leadership roles in Mortar Board, Iron Key and the Society of Minority Managers while at Purdue.

Following completion of her Purdue undergraduate degree, Ms. Banks earned her Juris Doctorate from Emory University School of Law. Upon graduation in 1996, she was admitted to the Georgia State Bar, and started her legal career as an Assistant District Attorney in the Fulton County District Attorney's Office in Atlanta. In this role she was responsible for the lead prosecution in felony criminal cases in metropolitan Atlanta.

Following a successful career as a felony criminal prosecutor, she returned to her accounting and legal background to take a position as a senior international tax attorney with Arthur Andersen LLP, Atlanta. In this role, she led tax-planning initiatives for major clients, focusing primarily on German tax planning strategies in the transportation and healthcare industries.

In 2001, Ms. Banks returned to Purdue to pursue an MBA in both human resources and marketing. Upon completion of her MBA program in 2003, she joined Guidant Corp. While at Guidant, now Boston Scientific Corporation, she worked in talent acquisition, employee relations, sales internal talent management, college recruiting, diversity and inclusion.

Ms. Banks was recently named human resources director at UCB, a global bio-pharmaceutical company focused on severe diseases in two therapeutic areas: central nervous system and immunology. She is an active member of the Employment Law Section of the Georgia State Bar.