Karen Kuhla, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Education

Thayer Leader Development Group at West Point

Biography

Karen has over 20 years in the field of leadership development working with leaders, and students of leadership, in the corporate, non-profit, and education environments. In her current role, she leads a world-class team to deliver leadership and ethics education based on the Army's leadership framework of “Be, Know, Do” to help develop full-time leaders of character.

Karen began her professional career teaching middle-school, high-school, and adult education. After receiving her Ph.D., she worked as a Program Manager for a non-profit service organization serving 11 school districts. She then worked for Arthur Andersen, as an Organizational Development Manager, where she helped establish and manage a performance-management process, infrastructure, and technology-development team for the firm, until the closure of Arthur Andersen. Karen transitioned into the inaugural position of Director of Client Services at CDR International, a Mercer-Delta Consulting Company. She designed and led an internal team supporting the delivery of large-scale, global leadership development programs; she also served on the leadership team to prepare the organization for acquisition, after which she started working at General Electric (GE) Healthcare’s consulting group where she delivered GE’s leadership development systems to healthcare executives. In March, 2008, she began work at GE’s Corporate University, Crotonville, as Global Leadership Development Manager, prior to starting with TLDG.

Karen attended Virginia Tech where she received a B.S. degree in Business and an M.S. degree in Education. Karen earned a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Virginia.  She is the recipient of a National Research Award; has presented at local, state, and national conferences; and is co-author and editor of over ten publications. She has certifications in Interpersonal Skills Instruction, High Performance Management Systems, and GE’s Change Acceleration Process.

kkuhla@thayerleaderdevelopment.com

www.thayerleaderdevelopment.com