ABENA BONSO-BRUCE
Chief People Officer
Abena is the Chief People Officer at Miller Wenhold Association Management. She serves as the Executive Director of The Transportation Alliance.
Abena holds an MBA with a concentration in Human Resources. She has over 15 years of experience in human resources, volunteer management, recruiting, managing federal grants, diversity and inclusion and employee retention strategies.
Prior to joining Miller Wenhold, she served as the Assistant Director (Volunteer Workforce Solutions) at the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) where she managed and offered executive oversight to federal grants focused on volunteer firefighter recruitment, retention, training, diversity and inclusion and served as an instructor. While at the IAFC, she also worked on national and state-level programs, and involved sections, divisions and committees to accomplish IAFC’s strategic plans, grants and program requirements.
Abena has presented at several local and national conferences such as Fire-Rescue International, the Volunteer and Combination Officers’ Section’s Symposium in the Sun, the North Carolina Association of Fire Chiefs’ Midwinter Conference, the Virginia Fire Chiefs’ Association Conference, and the American Society for Association Executives’ (ASAE) Conference. Some of the topics she has presented include recruitment and retention of volunteers, onboarding volunteers, diversity and inclusion, and motivating volunteers.
Abena volunteers as the Vice-Chair of the Loudoun County Fire and Rescue Recruitment and Retention Committee as well as an instructor for orientation. She has been the Chair of a scholarship program for volunteers at the Ashburn Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department for the past 10 years. Abena is a member of the ASAE’s Component Relation and Volunteer Management Council and a Board Member of First Responders Care, a non-profit that educates first responders on issues in their communities and empowers them to act.