Madeleine Moore Burrell

Marketing executive Madeleine Moore Burrell was born in 1940. She received her B.F.A. degree from New York University and studied industrial design at the Parsons School of Design. She also received her M.F.A. degree in writing from Columbia University.

Moore Burrell’s first carrier spanned ten years as an industrial designer with Henry Dreyfuss Associates and Goretz Industrial Design, where she designed products ranging from John Deere tractors and Datsun dashboards, to American Airlines interiors and the first snowmobile for AMF. She also designed the first plastic hangers in the United States, pay phones for Bell Atlantic, industrial cameras for Polaroid and sewing machines for Singer.

In 1985, Moore Burrell founded and spearheaded Moore Creative, a New York marketing firm with clients that included Anheuser Busch, the Apollo Theater, and the first of several hospital based HMOs that she marketed in the United States. In 1994, Moore Creative was the first African American marketing firm awarded a post-apartheid contract with South Africa, launching the Sister City agreement between New York City and Johannesburg, South Africa. Moore Burrell’s clients also included the annual Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, the Essence Awards on FOX TV and Dawn Magazine, the Sunday supplement to The Afro-American newspaper.

Moore Burrell served as chairman of Public New York, a SoHo based advertising firm, as well as president of Moore Creative @ Austin & Williams, Inc. She served as president of AARP for the State of New York and the founding chapter of The New York Coalition of 100 Black Women; and was a trustee of New York's Central Park Conservancy. In addition, she co-founded The National Professionals Network (NPN), convening leadership conference cruises for over twenty years.

As co- founder of the 21st Century Women's Leadership Center, a cultural collaboration of Black, Hispanic and Asian women’s organizations, Moore Burrell developed numerous scholarships, role model and mentoring initiatives for inner-city girls. She is an officer of the Board of Columbia College Chicago and has received an honorary doctorate degree from the City University of New York.

Moore Burrell and her husband, advertising icon and author Tom Burrell, reside in Chicago, Illinois, where they partner in The Brainwashed Resolution Project.

Madeleine Moore Burrell was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 22, 2014.