Karen grew up in New Zealand, Japan and Hong Kong, and studied Psychology in Silicon Valley in California in the United States under a full scholarship. She worked for 10 years at
the Singapore Airlines Headquarters in a management development programme with key roles in marketing & branding to launch the new Airbus 380 and inflight products, inflight experience management, international governmental affairs and sales. Among other initiatives to cultivate creativity and innovation, she co-founded and ran TEDxSingaporeAirlines events on top of existing responsibilities.

Shortly after completing an MBA at Mannheim Business School in Germany, Karen joined Airbus Defence and Space in Munich to work in digitalisation, tools and change management. Since 2022, she has been responsible for marketing the defence portfolio of unmanned aerial systems and its enabling technologies across Airbus.

She is a long-distance runner, an artist, and has a second-degree black belt in Aikido, a sport she will return to with the ambition to instruct others, after her two toddlers are older. She speaks Mandarin / Cantonese, Japanese, German, English and elementary French.