Karen has over 25 years of accounting and finance experience, starting her career in public accounting as a Chartered Accountant in Ireland. She came to the US in 1995 where she sat for the CPA test, passing all parts on her first attempt in the spring of 1996, while working as assistant controller for Quidel Corporation. Throughout her career she has held progressively senior roles in both public and private companies both here in the US and in Ireland. She has assisted in raising funds in equity and debt offerings and was involved with strategic transactions including the completion and successful integration of a number of acquisitions. While at Oakley Inc, she was responsible for the successful set up of the European financial services center in Dublin, Ireland, creating savings of >1m per year while being responsible for the compliance and reporting for 13 different entities in 11 countries in Europe. In her current role as CFO for The San Diego Blood Bank, Karen oversees the group’s strategic planning, accounting, materials management, and grant reporting functions of this 45m organization, including modernizing and updating the ERP system. Karen’s talent sweet spots are in driving profitability and in operations/process improvement. She is the Board Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee of The Women’s Foundation of California, providing finance and accounting leadership to assist the organization in achieving gender, racial and economic justice for the women of California. She is also the board trustee of the San Diego chapter of FEI (Financial Executives International). She is member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland, The Association of Chartered Accountants in the US and holds an active Chartered Accounting license.