Bukata Hayes

Bukata Hayes joined Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota as vice president of racial and health equity in 2021. Before that, he served as the executive director of the Greater Mankato Diversity Council since September 2006. He also previously served as the coordinator of the Multi Ethnic Center at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, the first-ever position of its kind at the college. He received his bachelor’s degree in exercise physiology from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. He is actively involved in numerous community-based organizations, including the Mankato Chapter of the NAACP (president), Mankato Family YMCA (membership committee), Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Board (president), Latin American Multicultural Association for Networking and Opportunity (LA MANO) (board), Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (board), and the Blandin Foundation Board of Trustees. His greatest pride is that he is the son of Dia Damani Courtney and Karen Hayes, husband to Lisa, and father to Damani, Jalen, Zavier, and Zuri.