Karen Lay-Brew

Background

Karen has over 30 years of experience at the operational and executive levels in multi-national corporations in mining, manufacturing, energy and software industries. Her executive responsibilities have encompassed all aspects of a business from strategy and planning, organisation alignment, leadership development, financial and performance management, all tightly linked to providing product and services to the customer.

Karen previously worked at Microsoft Headquarters in the USA as Vice President for delivering global software releases encompassing Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service.  She also served as the Vice President & Chief Information Officer for BHP Billiton Base Metals Division where she implemented a world-wide Six Sigma Operational Excellence programme.  As the Chief Information Officer for Honeywell Asia-Pacific, she worked across different cultures and geographies to successfully integrate the disparate IT organisations serving 14 different countries. Karen has also consulted to various Government Departments and SME’s.

With strong leadership and communication skills, Karen is effective in highly complex environments with many stakeholders. She has achieved outstanding sustained business results by leading corporations through embodying culture change at each level of the organisation, and across different cultures. Karen is an executive coach to senior leaders, and is also active in promoting diversity initiatives and development of women in leadership.

Key Areas of Expertise

• Corporate and IT Governance and Risk Management
• Productivity & Efficiency Improvement
• International Operations and Culture Change
• Strategy Development and Implementation
• Program Management

Qualifications

Master of Business Administration

Bachelor of Applied Science - Computing

Certifications:

Quality System Assessor (Baldridge criteria compliant)

Six Sigma Green Belt

Industry Focus

• Mining and Energy
• Technology and Software
• Manufacturing