Carmen Jackson joins Giving Kitchen as Chief Operating Officer, bringing more than 18 years of operational and strategic leadership across Fortune 100 enterprises, mission-driven organizations, and independent consulting. She is known for building the infrastructure that lets organizations do their best work, strengthening core functions, aligning teams, and creating the systems that allow missions to scale with intention.
With a deep understanding of what it takes to build operational excellence from the inside out, Carmen’s career spans enterprise consulting at IBM, KPMG, and McKinsey, where she led post-acquisition integrations, built global centers of excellence, and delivered double-to-triple digit performance outcomes across industries including financial services, technology, travel and hospitality, and energy. She has held executive and programmatic roles across sectors, including serving as Fractional Innovation Director for a national financial education nonprofit and Executive Director of a community development corporation, where she rebuilt operational and financial infrastructure from the ground up and forged partnerships that generated measurable community impact.
Through Metric Strategy Partners, her independent consulting practice, Carmen has spent recent years helping organizations, including nonprofits, build the governance frameworks, technology infrastructure, and operational models they need to sustain growth and serve their communities well.
Carmen began her career in food service and retail, experiences that gave her an early and enduring appreciation for the people who show up every day to keep the industry running. She is drawn to Giving Kitchen because the mission is personal, the team is exceptional, and the work ahead is exactly the kind she was built to do.
A graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Carmen has also completed engineering coursework at Georgia Tech Lorraine in France. She is a proud alumna of Leadership Long Beach and a member of the Junior League.
Carmen has run six marathons in support of cancer research with Team in Training for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, several half marathons for St. Jude, volunteered across a host of community organizations, and believes deeply in building bridges and bringing people around the table to collaborate and form side-by-side partnerships. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, writing, the symphony orchestra, and almost all things outdoors.