Tonya L. Berry is senior vice president of transformation and engineering for CMS Energy and Consumers Energy. She was named to this position in 2022. She is responsible for renewables and major projects, electric and gas engineering and quality. In this role, Berry applies her more than 20 years of experience deploying lean methodologies to enhance quality and improve work management in gas and electric groups.
Previously, Berry was vice president of gas operations for Consumers Energy. Her responsibilities included gas transmission, distribution and gas system integrity.
Berry previously served as vice president of operations performance for Consumers Energy. She was responsible for implementing the Consumers Energy Way, lean principles, metrics analysis and reporting, in-process standard verification and work management improvement.
Berry joined Consumers Energy in 2015 as a member of the quality team. After briefly serving as manager of strategic initiatives with Massachusetts-based Energy Federation, Inc., she returned in 2017 to successfully lead Consumers Energy’s Lean Office and company’s adoption of the CE Way.
Previously, Berry served as lean consultant with a Michigan-based industrial engineering staffing and lean management consulting company. Berry integrated lean methodology and led kaizen workshops to identify process improvements among client organizations.
Berry previously held several increasingly responsible roles with Chrysler, LLC, including industrial engineer and financial analyst in Chrysler’s Jefferson North Assembly Plant, productivity team lead in its Jeep/truck division and industrial engineering manager in its car/minivan division.
Berry began her career as an operations engineer with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, where she worked with process improvement teams to improve productivity and quality while reducing cost.
Berry was featured in Black Enterprise Magazine’s July 2008 issue and named among Chrysler, LLC’s Leaders of Today & Tomorrow in 2007, and was Black Engineer of the Year’s Modern-Day Technology Leader in 2007. Berry was a Michigan Chronicle Women of Excellence honoree in 2019 and received the Women of Color Presidents Award that same year.