Karen Hold

DIRECTOR, DT: DC, A 4,500-member meetup group in Washington, DC
DIRECTOR, Summer of Design, Washington, DC
ADJUNCT FACULTY MEMBER, University of Maryland
VISITING EXECUTIVE LECTURER, University of Virginia Darden School of Business, Charlottesville, VA

Karen is a design strategist who specializes in building creative capacity in individuals, organizations and cities. She thrives on helping her clients innovate and adapt to a rapidly changing competitive landscape. Karen has extensive industry experience across many sectors including telecommunications, consumer packaged goods, publishing, non-profits and education. A P&G-trained brand marketer, Karen saw firsthand how P&G drove revenue and profit growth with innovation. Inspired by her experience, Karen founded her own small business, a publishing company, and built sales through innovative marketing partnerships with Forbes and BusinessWeek magazines.

As the Publisher, Karen successfully shared the business results of clients in the financial, healthcare, arts, government, education, telecommunications, high-tech, entertainment and nonprofit markets. Her clients included AT&T, Alcatel, Cisco, MCI, Nokia, Nortel Networks and NEC.  Design strategy allows Karen to create value at the intersection of her passions for storytelling, innovation, strategy and design.

Karen is a graduate of Duke University and Georgetown University McDonough School of Business. She is the Director of DT: DC, a 4,500-member MeetUp group in Washington, DC, an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland and a Visiting Executive Lecturer at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.