The People

Karen Summers

Senior Consultant


Karen Summers is a qualified and experienced Executive Coach. After fifteen years in senior human resources roles, with well known blue chip companies, she moved into consultancy, specialising in organizational development.  She has strong operational and HR experience, and a proven track record in positively influencing staff, at all levels, towards achieving sustainable business and personal improvement.
Karen is an experienced HR professional and she is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD).  She completed her Masters Degree in HRM (University of Hull) and, currently, she fulfils an MBA Supervision role for Strathclyde University.  She enjoys contributing to the development of students especially as this requires her to keep up-to-date with research and her own professional development. Recognition for her coaching skills is her PGC in Personal and Business Coaching, and she continues her professional development in accordance with best practice through regular coaching supervision.

Karen has extensive strategic level corporate experience in the oil & gas, rail, health, retail, catering, charity and training sectors. Most recently, and prior to working as a consultant, she worked for an oil and gas super major as their Head of Training & Development.  Interesting, much of Karen’s corporate experience has been working through management buy-outs, mergers, acquisitions and the resultant major cultural changes.  This means that Karen has acquired wide-ranging experience of managing change and has developed the capability to support the needs of people in such turbulent times.

Business Focus:

Karen’s style is flexible and one of client focus, inter-personal warmth, professionalism, confidence building and goal orientation. She has significant experience of working with people to develop and deliver against action plans following 360° appraisals. She is particularly strong in the alignment of personal, team and organisational values and vision.  Karen also represents Organizational Edge in Scotland and the North, as she is established close to Aberdeen and the industries which are based there.

Areas of particular experience in coaching and mentoring include:

  • Performance enhancement working with critical directors, team leaders and managers
  • Profiled coaching using 360° feedback and other data to construct feedback reports, providing the debriefing and coaching support
  • Change management coaching in a context for business improvement
  • Professional mentoring for HR specialists and teams to improve business impact through more effective business partnering
  • Talent management coaching to enable rising stars to achieve their potential
  • Career transition coaching for individuals newly promoted, appointed or in posts recently made redundant

She prides herself on having fun at work whilst not losing sight of the serious business in hand.