Following her pharmacy degree and early career in hospital pharmacy, Karen’s interest in the impacts of adverse drug reactions on patients led her to take a postgraduate Clinical Pharmacy Masters at the University of Derby. 

After a variety of clinical roles and a period working on the postgraduate pharmacy programme at the University of Derby, Karen moved into publishing, working first on Stockley’s Drug Interactions before moving to manage the programme of major reference works published by Pharmaceutical Press (PhP), the knowledge business of the Royal College of Pharmacy. 

Karen became BNF director in 2014 and oversaw the transformation of the British National Formulary (BNF) Publications.  This included leading the changes to the BNF that made it a digital-first publication and underpinned the creation of the award-winning BNF app, that has been downloaded by over half a million health professionals. 

Building on a deep understanding of publishing and having led significant change programmes to transform PhP into a more digitally focused organisation, Karen became managing director of PhP in 2018. 

In 2022, Karen extended in her role to become the deputy chief executive of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), where she used her experience of driving change and her passion for patient safety to lead and implement the organisation’s transformation into a royal college. Karen took up her current role as chief executive in April 2026, when RPS became the Royal College of Pharmacy.  

Karen has extensive external experience both as a charity trustee and as a non-executive director in other knowledge businesses, and has a keen interest in organisational design and development.