Karen Thorpe-Reid
Executive Advisor on Leadership, Strategy & Transformation.
I’m Karen Thorpe-Reid, Executive Advisor on Leadership, Strategy & Transformation. For more than twenty-five years I’ve worked alongside executive teams delivering complex organisational change across global organisations. Alongside my corporate career, I’ve built businesses, advised leaders and developed transformation capability — all grounded in one belief: people are at the heart of every successful transformation. Today, through The Leadership & Transformation Studio, I help leaders think more clearly, lead more intentionally, and create organisations that thrive through change.
Recognition
Karen’s work has been recognised and published across the leadership and transformation community — from featured profiles to industry platforms championing inclusive, human-centred change.
Selected for publication
Karen’s story was selected for inclusion in The Voices in the Shadow, celebrating Black women making an impact in technology.
Tech London Advocates Black Women in Tech · 2021
Where the work has happened
More than twenty-five years alongside executive teams where change is complex, highly visible and inseparable from people’s everyday experience.
Karen’s work has ranged from independent executive counsel to embedded transformation leadership, including international assignments delivered through long-standing strategic partnerships.
Consumer & Technology
Walgreens Boots Alliance · TalkTalk · Dixons Carphone · Colt
Enterprise technology, customer platforms and multinational adoption—connecting programme delivery with the realities of stores, corporate functions and dispersed employee groups.
Energy & Manufacturing
Shell · Sidel
Change leadership, sponsorship and capability across international, operationally complex and matrixed organisations.
Life Sciences & Healthcare
Novartis · Syngenta · Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
Leadership capability, organisational readiness and human-centred adoption in environments shaped by science, care, regulation and risk.
Infrastructure & Transport
Network Rail · Transport for London
Operating-model, service and organisational transformation across complex systems with multiple stakeholders and visible public consequences.
Aviation & Safety-Critical Environments
NATS
Change frameworks, governance and business readiness designed for an environment where clarity, accountability and sustained adoption are essential.
Government & Public Services
Department for International Trade · Essex County Council · Bedford Council · Dacorum Borough Council · Camden · Haringey
Operating-model redesign, service transformation and efficiency-led change—helping public organisations improve outcomes while navigating financial and organisational constraint.
Global Change Partnership
Since 2011, Karen has also worked as a Strategic Change Partner with Change First, supporting leadership development, executive coaching, change capability and international transformation across the UK, Europe and Asia.
Alongside client work, Karen speaks at leadership events and has been published across the transformation community — see In the Press.
Professional foundations
MA Applied Project Management (Commendation) · Advanced Master Change Practitioner · Leading Change Executive Coach · MSP · MoP · MoB · Prosci · PRINCE2 · Lean · Agile
Full qualification names
- Master of Arts in Applied Project Management — Commendation
- Advanced Master Change Practitioner — PCI
- Leading Change Executive Coach — PCI
- Managing Successful Programmes Practitioner
- Management of Portfolios Practitioner
- Management of Benefits Foundation
- Prosci Change Management
- PRINCE2
- Lean
- Agile
Personal philosophy
Strategy sets the direction. People decide whether it actually happens. That’s the belief behind everything I do — and the reason I built The Connection Bridge™.