Karen Lawson is an award winning business executive and leader in the digital and startup industry. She uses her experience in driving reinvention and transformation to help the world’s biggest brands to stay ahead of disruption.
Today she is the newly appointed CEO of a startup backed by a major bank disrupting the home buying journey.
Previously as CEO of Slingshot, she grew the business into the #1 corporate accelerator in Australia, having accelerated more startups and run more corporate programs than any other other provider. Driving the total market capitalisation of its alumni to over $507m having accelerated over 128 businesses. The $15m Slingshot Venture Fund has invested into early stage founders driving innovation, economic growth and employment. Slingshot worked across different industries from fintech, healthtech, membertech and HR, fuels, retail and travel with leading organisations such as Qantas, Lion, SEEK, NewsCorp, HCF, Caltex along with state and federal governments.
Under Karen’s leadership she launched a disruptive digital SaaS busness, CoVentured providing a global platform to connect corporates and startups for mutual growth. It launched late 2017 its operating at $1m run rate with corporates such as West Pac, Australia Post and Woolworths and has been joined by over 70% of Australian startups.
Prior to her role at Slingshot, Karen served as CEO of CareerOne, a joint venture between News Limited and Monster Worldwide. With a remit to forge a new digital strategy, Karen reinvented the traditional job board into a leading targeting and digital business offering media, employer branding, SaaS and sourcing solutions. CareerOne went on to be awarded a spot in the coveted BRW ‘Top 50 most innovative companies’ list for 2014.
She also served as General Manager at Yahoo!7 where she held full commercial and operational responsibility for business development, data, advertising, channel, publishing, technology, search, mobile and strategic partnerships, including the Microsoft Bing alliance.
With experience leading through change; motivating and developing cross functional teams to peak performance, Karen is extremely passionate about delivering great results and helping others achieve their true potential.
She is also a prolific networker, experienced media commentator and guest speaker, with appearances on TV, radio in print and digital, as well as industry forums. Her commitment to not only driving innovation and disruption but also to promoting D&I resulted in Karen being selected as UN ambassador for Women's Entrepreneurship Day, Rare Birds Speaker, Nominee for Telstra Woman of the Year, Pledge 1%’s Women Who Lead, Australian Growth Company Awards, Women's Agenda finalist 2017 and Smart Company Women in Tech 2018.
Karen is also a huge ‘foodie’ and has been a food and luxury travel journalist for over thirteen years, writing for a diverse range of publishers. She doesn’t have holidays, but has research and writing trips! To balance this out she is an avid runner having completed both New York and London Marathons, though these days she is more likely to be seen jogging around Blackwattle Bay at a much more sedate pace!