Lee Sanders Bio
Lee Sanders is President of Lee Sanders Strategy Group LLC providing strategic legislative and regulatory counsel to select clients in the food and agriculture arenas. She is a founder and the current President of the Society of Bakery Women, which serves as a platform to expand diversity in the baking industry through professional networking events and its scholarship program.
Formerly, she served as the American Bakers Association Senior Vice President, Government Relations and Public Affairs, as well as Corporate Secretary. In that role, Lee led the ABA government relations team representing the baking industry before Congress, federal agencies, state legislatures, and international policy-making bodies. She also led the Grain Chain, a Farm to Fork Coalition of eleven grain industry organizations that partner for unified strategy to promote and support nutritional benefit messaging for grain-based foods in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
She established and is a Past Chair for the Food and Beverage Issue Alliance that serves as a platform for communications for over 50 FDA-regulated food industry trade associations that work together to develop unified positions on nutrition and food safety issues meeting quarterly with FDA and other key federal government agencies.
Additionally, she sits on the Executive Committee for the Business Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC). Sanders is a past chair of both the Wheat Quality Council and Cereal and Grains Association (formerly American Association of Cereal Chemists International (AACCI)) Milling and Baking Division. She served as a long-time Advisory Board member and as Chair of the Technical Committee for the American Society of Baking.
Before coming to the industry 30 years ago, Sanders served in several government roles including legislative aide to Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) and as a political appointee in the Administration of George H.W. Bush.
In 2023, she was inducted into Marquis Who’s Who and was the 2021 recipient of the American Society of Baking’s Robert A. Fischer Distinguished Service Award. She also received the 2017 Full Kernel Award from the Wheat Quality Council for outstanding contributions to the improvement of wheat and flour quality in the United States. In 2009, Sanders was recognized as the AACCI Myron D. “Mike” Baustian Memorial Award recipient for outstanding service and received the Leadership Award from Baking & Snack Magazine.
Lee holds a B.A. Degree in Journalism from the University of Mississippi and currently sits on its Political Science Advisory Board. Additionally, she holds executive education certificates from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business in Leading Teams for Growth and Change as well as Strategic Analysis and Decision-Making. Sanders is a Certified Association Executive (CAE), American Society of Association Executives.