sparks & honey Expands Advisory Board, Welcomes Experts in Emerging Tastes & Equitable Futures

sparks & honey recently announced the two newest additions to our world-class Advisory Board; two new professionals join over 70 existing seasoned leaders to strengthen sparks & honey’s consulting work across key categories including education, employment, and the changing palate of a multicultural America, among others. The new Board members include CEO of Fly by Jing, a chef, entrepreneur and renowned expert on Chinese cuisine Jing Gao and Chief Education & Operations Innovation Officer at the Colorado State University System Dr. Becky Takeda-Tinker.

Started in 2012, the sparks & honey Advisory Board has been a key part of our culture as a Learning Organization, further cementing us as a place where experts and innovators in their fields come together to quantify cultural change to help C-Suite leaders stay ahead of disruption and have a say in transforming their markets. Advisory Board members frequently contribute their expert-level insights and career learnings to our various cultural intelligence products, including the Equity Effect Report, which covered return-to-office principles after a year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Disrupting Hate Culture Briefing series which investigated emerging shifts in terrorism at home and abroad, alongside several of our special briefings series covering various topics including equitable futures, distrupting metabolism, the future of food and flavors, precision cognition, and many more.

“As an organization that hinges on constant learning and open thinking, we are always seeking future-forward leaders that share our ideals and push the boundaries to add to our Advisory Board,” said Terry Young, Founder & CEO of sparks & honey. “Jing and Becky bring a dynamic sense of curiosity and a deep understanding of their respective fields to help the consultancy quantify cultural shifts and address the biggest challenges corporations and society face today. We’re very much looking forward to learning from and working with these remarkable women.” Read the official press release here.

• Jing Gao is a chef, entrepreneur and renowned expert on Chinese cuisine on a mission to bring uncensored Chinese flavors to the table. Founder and CEO of Fly By Jing, Gao uses her experience as a chef to share meaningful flavors that open people up to new ideas and conversations. Fly By Jing began as a quest to reconnect with her roots, but became a mission to rewrite false narratives on Chinese cuisine in the West – showing that Chinese food can be made from the highest quality ingredients without any artificial additives and preservatives. Following its launch on Kickstarter in 2018 as the highest-funded craft food project on the platform, Fly By Jing has seen viral organic growth from a devoted fan base and has been featured in The New York Times, Fast Company, Fortune, WSJ, Saveur, Esquire and more. Prior to her career in food, Gao worked in brand management at P&G and led product marketing and strategic business development for Blackberry and frog Design.

• Dr. Becky Takeda-Tinker is the Chief Education & Operations Innovation Officer at the Colorado State University System, where she leverages years of experience in collaborating, leading, and sharing what is possible among diverse stakeholders to deliver innovative higher education and training programs that ensure workforce success. This builds on her prior role as Recovery Officer with Colorado's Departments of Labor & Employment and Higher Education where she invested post-pandemic federal and state funds for economic growth and recovery. Takeda-Tinker was also the first president & CEO of Colorado State University Global, the nation’s first fully online and fully accredited public nonprofit institution. She is the author of Impacting the Future of Higher Education, and has been selected as one of Denver Business Journal’s Outstanding Women in Business and PowerBook Thought Leader; named one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Business by the Colorado’s Women’s Chamber of Commerce, one of the Five Higher Ed Leaders to Watch by Education Dive and a Woman of Distinction by the Girl Scouts.