About Karen Boylston
Karen Boylston, Ph.D
Managing Partner
As Managing Partner, Karen draws from her 25 years of senior-level and executive development consulting experience to consult with senior leaders on the intersection of strategy and leadership. She brings a systemic and collaborative approach to the design and implementation of strategy execution, culture change, strategic leadership development, talent/succession planning and executive coaching.
Karen advises and coaches CEOs and facilitates executive teams to optimize their individual and collective capacity to lead their organizations amidst rapidly changing business environments. Her work focuses on successful execution of business strategy through alignment of organization structure, culture, and people—particularly senior leaders and their teams.
Her clients span diverse industries including pharmaceutical and biotech, financial services, energy, health systems/academic medical centers, defense, telecommunications, and consumer products.
“Karen is a trusted advisor and excellent coach who willingly shares her knowledge and perspective, and is a key strategic partner to any executive focused on creating and driving critical organizational change. She inspires leaders to enhance their leadership practice and deliver exceptional results.”
SVP, Financial Services Company
BACKGROUND
Before starting her own firm, Karen was a Managing Director at Duke Corporate Education (Duke CE), where she led over 25 client teams in creating customized strategy and executive development solutions. Using cutting-edge learning practices, she partnered with clients to design new leader architectures and development experiences tightly linked to new business strategy. Karen’s professional career roles and affiliations include a series of #1 ranked companies in their respective education and consulting fields.
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Duke CE’s Global Educator Network—an Executive Coach (active).
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Boston Consulting Group (BCG)—a Principal in the Organization Practice leading strategic change programs during mergers and acquisitions.
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Sibson Consulting—a Senior Consultant with the Human Capital Practice focused on change management and talent development.
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Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)—a Director of the Organization Leadership Practice, where she led (vs. developed and managed) the change leadership and executive team innovation practice areas. At CCL, Karen facilitated and coached over 100 executive teams from major global companies.
EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Karen is an industrial-organizational psychologist, and holds a Ph.D in Psychology from the University of South Carolina. While at USC, she completed coursework in the MBA program in Human Resources, and an internship at IBM. She holds a M.A. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Connecticut, and a B.A. in Psychology from Fairfield University.
Karen has expertise and certification in over 15 executive and leadership development assessment surveys, and has provided coaching using 360-degree leadership surveys designed for client companies. These surveys include: MBTI, FIRO-B, Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI), Thomas Kilmann Conflict Inventory (TKI), Change Style Indicator (CSI), Team Development Inventory (TDS), Benchmarks, Skill Scope, Leadership Versatility Index (LVI), PDI/Executive Profiler, California Psychological Inventory (CPI).
She is a member of American Psychological Association (APA), Comprehensive Energy Psychology Division (ACEP) and Organization Development Network. Karen is attending workshops on energy psychology, mindfulness, and neuroscience to incorporate into her coaching work. She is an active kayaker, dancer, and global traveler with over 1 million miles flown to serve her clients and explore the world.