Karen Clark brings over 25 years of experience to the subject matter she teaches including consultative skills, communication, and teaming.
For years she taught IBM professionals the crucial client consulting skills they needed to transition to services careers. At EBI, she uses that experience to teach executives and professionals, facing similar career changes and challenges, how to be more consultative with their clients.
Ms. Clark’s expertise in the development of basic consulting skills enables professionals pursuing services careers to more effectively solve client problems and produce better written communications and presentations. She brings her extensive experience and research in best practices in consultant writing to the EBI courses she teaches.
One such example is that she worked with a team to develop a program that teaches how to develop engagement deliverables, i.e., logically-written, executive-level communications. The program has led to a significant improvement in the logic and structure of the deliverables used in IBM consulting engagements.
Ms. Clark has also performed skills gap analysis to determine consultant development needs. Those recommendations resulted in a shortening of the classroom course and the implementation of a mandatory online pre-requisite test. The result was increased consultant productivity and reduced travel and living costs.
Her experience, client contact, research and teaching focus makes Ms. Clark an effective educator in both the classroom and distance learning settings. Ms. Clark has taught MBA and Executive MBA students at the University of Notre Dame on the topic of effective writing and presentations.
She is certified to teach learner-centered coaching, negotiation and creative styles and has learned case teaching techniques at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. Within IBM, she has taken professional training in the areas of personnel management and motivation, consulting and technical topics.
She earned her B.A. (cum laude) from the University of Notre Dame, and is a recipient of the Bergen County (NJ) YWCA Tribute to Women In Industry (TWIN) award for her contribution to the industry in a professional role.
Faculty Publications
- Ten Steps to Help You Present as a Consultant, IBM Executive Business Institute, 2005
- The I/T Organization as Internal Consultant, IBM Executive Business Institute, 2005