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Karen is an expert strategic and financial leader with a passion for helping organizations and individuals thrive. She brings more than two decades of experience in business leadership roles in for-profit and non-profit organizations. As Vice President and member of our executive team, Karen stewards Nyhus’ day-to-day administrative, financial and operational functions and delivers strategic insights and opportunities for the organization. She is passionate about bringing actionable intelligence to the Nyhus team.
Prior to joining Nyhus, Karen consulted with a variety of organizations on strategy development and execution as well as project and process management. Prior to that, Karen served as deputy director for grants management in global development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In that capacity, she led a team on all strategic and tactical aspects of grant administration, including a major initiative to streamline the grant-making process across the foundation.
Prior to joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Karen served in a variety of strategic and financial leadership roles at Weyerhaeuser Company, a global forest products company. During her time at Weyerhaeuser she led work in strategic and financial analysis, acquisitions and divestitures, and business and corporate strategic planning, to name a few. She combined her passion for giving back to the community with her belief in the company’s mission to ultimately lead the Weyerhaeuser Company foundation as its president.
Karen received her Master of Management from Northwestern University with an emphasis in strategy, organization behavior and international business, and her Bachelor of Business Administration from Iowa State University.
Raised in the Chicago area in a family of immigrants, Karen enjoys hearing family stories and traveling and experiencing other cultures. She is passionate about the beauty of the Pacific Northwest and enjoys spending time hiking with her husband, horse-back riding, and seeing all the Pacific Northwest has to offer.
Karen is a graduate of Seattle University’s Executive Leadership Program and Seattle’s Leadership Tomorrow community leader development program. She volunteers with Leadership Tomorrow on the Screening & Selection Committee, and is a former board member. Karen is treasurer of IPREX, a global communication platform for member firms to collaborate on best practices and bring world-class solutions to clients.