Karen Vahouny

Employer: Karen Vahouny Consulting

Title: Principal and Owner

Karen Vahouny has senior leadership experience on both the corporate and agency side, having served as a VP of corporate communications and later as a founding partner of a communications firm that grew to become one of the largest independent agencies in the U.S. She embarked on a new career in 2011, starting her own communication consultancy with a client base that includes corporate, government, and non-profit clients. Her work centers on leadership communication and executive communication coaching in the areas of change management, mergers and acquisitions, branding and messaging, and internal and external communication. The combination of her investor relations background, P&L experience, MBA, and teaching credentials are especially useful in bringing a business and results-oriented focus to her consulting clients.

She has served as an adjunct faculty member at three universities, teaching organizational communication in master’s degree and executive leadership programs and business/finance to GWU students in the strategic PR master’s program. Vahouny joined the advisory board of the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC) in 2020. GFLEC is a non-profit focused on financial literacy research, education and policy and was cited by Barrons as one of three organizations “making a mark in improving financial literacy." Earlier, she served as chairman of the National Endowment for Financial Education and is a former executive board member of the International Association of Business Communicators and the Washington chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute.

Ms. Vahouny is an affiliated faculty member of the Global Food Institute at GW.