Karen Searles Brethower, Ph.D.

Karen Searles Brethower is President of Executive Consultation LLC.—an organization leadership effectiveness consulting firm. Executive coaching, global manpower systems, and facilitated planning are the areas of special emphasis. Clients include AT&T, PolyGram International, Northeast Utilities, Warner-Lambert Puerto Rico, Federal Express, Johnson & Johnson, Mead, Prudential, Paine Webber and U.S.Trust.

Dr. Brethower was at Chase Manhattan Bank as Vice President and Director of Manpower Planning and Executive Development. During that time she designed and implemented an action-learning executive development program for the top executives, a global manpower planning system and a business-based management development function. Previous roles include Internal Consultant at Ford Motor Company, teaching at Cleveland State University, the New School for Social Research and the University of Michigan, where she participated in the development of process re-engineering with Dr. Geary Rummier.

The Wall Street Journal referenced Dr. Brethower’s work on executive coaching in an article in April, 1995.She has published on career development, evaluation and served on the Editorial Board of The Behavior Analyst. Dr. Brethower has been a member of the Board of Directors of New York University’s Management Assistance Project and a trustee of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. She served on the Advisory Board for The Directory of Banking and Finance. ed., Rosenberg, John Wiley. She testified before the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources and received a YWCA award as International Businesswoman of the Year.

Dr. Brethower has held national offices in the American Society for Training and Development in the areas of research, evaluation, organization development and national issues. She has also been a member of the Training Research Forum, National Society for Performance and Instruction, Organization Development Network, Conference Board Development Council, Environmental Scanning Association and Human Resource Planning Society.

Her degrees are from the University of Michigan: Ph.D. in Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Brethower also attended The University of Mexico and taught an executive development program in Mexico in Spanish. She has taught in numerous executive development programs and has been a keynote speaker in the U.S., Latin America and the Pacific Rim.