Profile of Karen Faerber

With a breadth of business skills in executive management, business planning and operations, financial management, contract negotiation and administration, vendor management, and project management, Karen is an experienced manager, skilled in establishing and leading multi-disciplined teams to achieve business goals and objectives. She has more than 25 years of experience across a diverse range of industries as a Principle Consultant to, and Director/Senior Manager with, professional services consulting companies such as Deloitte & Touche, IBM, Ernst & Young, and EDS. Her assignments have taken her to diverse regions of the world, giving her considerable experience and success in delivering complex projects across multicultural and multinational boundaries.

Karen's assignments with General Motors, Ford Motor, AT&T, Motorola, Australia Post, Telstra/Sensis, and others have included complex, enterprise-wide IT projects to replace legacy systems and rethink business processes, and short-term, highly focused projects aimed at optimizing productivity through improving business and IT processes and providing specialised training to Centre of Excellence staff. Adept in developing and deploying strategies, processes, and technologies to improve operational performance, she is highly effective in communicating with and managing the expectations of both executive and operational personnel to ensure that strategic solutions have organizational acceptance.

She has consulted to a variety of companies in the U.S. and Australia on their commercial management strategies, identifying appropriate areas for outsourcing; advising on policies and procedures for the selection, engagement and management of external service providers for the design and development of major IT projects; conducting commercial negotiations; measuring vendor performance and managing vendor relationships; and overseeing the governance of the ongoing relationships with the IT service providers. Based on her extensive experience in managing local and overseas vendors on long-term projects, Karen advises senior stakeholders and project managers, working directly with projects as needed to influence and achieve the business’ desired outcomes. Karen also consults on bid management strategies, providing robust financial and commercial analysis of bid proposals to influence decisions for the benefit of the business, based on risk mitigation, commercial positioning and alignment with business’ strategic goals

Karen currently works as an interim executive and advisor, helping companies build new business opportunities in energy management.  She has been consulting for the past two years to several US companies on the technology and policy issues of energy efficiency in the residential and commercial built environment. Karen has augmented her business skills and academic qualifications, focusing on the need for practical strategies, by successfully sitting the national examination for ENERGY STAR® raters and becoming certified as a Level I Thermographer specialising in weatherisation. 

She holds an Executive Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Melbourne Business School (Australia) and a Master of Arts degree from Eastern Michigan University (U.S.).   

She is a Member of the Michigan Chapter of Women in Technology (MCWT), the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM Region V), the Building Industry Association (U.S.), and the National Association of Home Builders (U.S.).  She also holds Prince 2 Project Management Certification and RESNET/HERS Energy Rater Certification.