Karen Wan
Director of Sustainability and Competitiveness
As Director of Sustainability and Competitiveness, Karen Wan is responsible for leading the sustainability practice at CMC. She is the Program Director for Chicago Waste to Profit Network, a public/private framework that promotes healthy business growth and a by-product synergy culture in the Chicago region. Under the leadership of the City of Chicago Department of the Environment, the Waste to Profit Network assists in creating a collaborative forum for business innovation.
Karen also works with Chicago area manufacturers to develop and implement sustainability strategies that improve their business growth and financial health. Through a long-term partnership with Natural Capitalism Solutions, CMC developed the GreenPlants program, which helps manufacturers implement sustainability as a long-term strategy for competitive growth. Karen also participates in local and national green manufacturing and sustainability conferences as an advocate of the value of sustainable business collaborative networks for implementing change.
In numerous technology and marketing roles over the last 20 years, Karen has built a strong foundation of strategic consulting expertise in technology transfer and communications. She led new product introduction teams at IBM; served as a technical writing team leader and webmaster at Ameritech (now SBC); and provided marketing and communications consulting services to companies as diverse as Castrol Industrial, Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and a broad range of entrepreneurial firms. Prior to coming to CMC, she was the Marketing Director for the Arkidata Corporation.
Karen is a graduate of the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, with a degree in materials science engineering.
