Mayor Stoney Makes Three More Administration Appointments

Mayor Levar M. Stoney today announced the appointment of three highly-qualified professionals to fill three additional executive positions presently held by interim appointees.

Acting Directors of Human Resources, Korita Brown Jones, and Information Technology, Charles G. Todd, have been promoted to positions of director, while Albemarle County’s recent Director of Finance, Betty J. Burrell, has been hired to serve as Richmond’s new Director of Procurement Services.

“Once again, we are most fortunate to have the best-of-the-best accepting these critically important leadership positions,” said Mayor Stoney. “While bringing renewed accountability to City Hall is an ongoing process and an especially concerted effort, our success is predicated upon the quality and dedication of our employees and people we have leading our departments.

“Korita, Charles and Betty all bring a wealth of experience, ideas and vigor to our administration, and I welcome them in these positions and look forward to all we will accomplish working together during my term.”

Korita Brown Jones has worked for the City of Richmond since January 2008.  She began her career with the city as a human resources (HR) consultant and worked on a variety of joint personnel-related projects through the former RichmondWorks initiative. 

Korita was previously promoted to Council Policy Analyst by Richmond City Council, and again to serve as council’s first HR liaison. In 2015, she was promoted to serve as the Division Chief of Compensation and Benefits in the Department of Human Resources, where she was instrumental in administering that year’s employee salary increases, launching the city’s high deductible health insurance plan with a city-sponsored health savings account and completing the city’s first comprehensive compensation study. Over the last year, Korita has served as interim HR Director.

Prior to the City of Richmond, Korita was employed with Springsted Incorporated, Genworth Financial and Chesterfield County, Virginia. She is a native of Petersburg, VA and received her Bachelor of Science degree in Public Administration from Virginia State University.

Charles G. Todd has worked for the City of Richmond in the Department of Information Technology (DIT) since 2013, when he was appointed manager of the department’s applications bureau and was responsible for six teams providing application development and management for all city agencies. This followed a 2012 contract appointment from Modis, where he led an application development and management team supporting nine city agencies. In 2015, he was promoted to Deputy Director for DIT Operations, overseeing the applications, infrastructure and end user services bureaus. Since then, he has served as interim director for the department.

Prior to his employment with the city, Charles worked for 17 years as an officer, vice president and senior vice president for Bank of America. There he was responsible for systems conversions, process reengineering, application development, CRM infrastructure, distributed systems, business intelligence and enterprise architecture. Charles is a native of Richmond and received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Virginia Tech.

Betty J. Burrell has served in local government for over 35 years, including a decade in procurement leadership during her tenure as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the City of Portsmouth, VA. She most recently held the position of Finance Director for Albemarle County, VA, where she led the local government and schools purchasing divisions, real estate and local tax assessments and collections, payroll, accounts payable and financial reporting. 

Betty also led Albermarle’s team that implemented Purchasing Cards (P-cards), which resulted in operational cost savings, rebate revenue generation and improved accountability, reporting and data analytics.

Betty holds a Master of Science in Administration with a concentration in Public Administration degree from Central Michigan University and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Averett University. 

“I cannot be more pleased with the leadership team we’ve put together,” said Richmond Chief Administrative Officer Selena Cuffee-Glenn.  “Human resources, procurement and information technology are key focal points in the backbone of our administration, and I am most pleased to welcome these talented individuals to their new positions.”