Karen Kahn | Influence 100
karen-kahn-2019-influence-100

Karen Kahn

Chief Communications Officer
HP
US

@karenkahn

 

In 2015, Kahn left Broadcom after nearly five years to become CCO for HP, which at the time had just completed its split from the enterprise business. She has since spearheaded a review of the company’s lucrative PR agency business, parting ways with longtime incumbent firms Porter Novelli and FleishmanHillard to consolidate with Edelman.

Last year, she joined the company’s executive leadership team, reporting directly to president and chief executive officer Dion Weisler. The move came after HP CMO Antonio Lucio — who worked with Kahn on an impressive diversity initiative — left for Facebook. The diversity push, which has seen HP mandate that its marketing agencies take concrete steps to increase the number of women and people of color in key creative and strategy roles, continues, and Kahn has since partnered with PRSA New York to recognize and celebrate agency diversity. ”You can only retain people if you can meet them where they live," she says.

She was named to the Holmes Report’s Innovator 25 earlier last year, and received our SABRE Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in May.