Karen is an MA Honours graduate and joined Shell International Petroleum Company Ltd. where she spent 10 years in human resources and industrial relations working across the oil and chemical sectors. Latterly she was responsible for a strategic review of human resources within the commercial and bitumen businesses.

In 1983 Karen moved to Australia where she worked for eight years as the group executive for human resources and strategic planning at Edward Lumley Ltd and consulting with Towers Perrin specialising in organisational change and communications.

Karen returned to Europe in 1987 and spent the next 12 years working in investment banking and investment management human resources working for Chemical Bank, JP Morgan and F&C Management Limited. A Chemical Bank steering committee member she was instrumental in the successful European integration of Chemical Bank and Manufacturers Hanover. At JP Morgan she held a senior position in Human Resources reporting to the Head of Europe. She led the transfer and integration of the European markets branch network. Working extensively with senior executives she developed the coaching and mentoring capability within the business.

As Human Resource Director at F&C Asset Management Limited, Karen worked with the major shareholder, Hypo-Vereinsbank Board, on the creation of remuneration policies for the asset management division for the merged bank. Karen left F&C in 1998 to go into consulting . She was retained by F&C as a Non Executive Director, member of the Nominations Committee and Chair of the Remuneration Committee positions she continued to hold until December 2006.

Karen works since 2000 as an independent consultant focussing on the areas of executive coaching and mentoring, change management, leadership and performance development to a range of clients in the financial services and professional services sectors including JPMorgan, Lehman, HBOS, HSBC, Citicorp group, Bank of America, BNPParibas, XL Insurance, Zurich Financial Services, Oliver Wyman and AT Kearney. . Karen obtained a BA Honours degree in Psychology and Counselling in 2004.

In 2005 Karen accepted a position as Non Executive Director of RPS plc where she is also Chair of the Remuneration and Environmental and Social Responsibility Committees.
She is an Executive Partner of Vestra Wealth Management.