Karen L LaRose

Ms. LaRose is a founding Principal at ACCORD, a collaborative of consultants specializing in conflict resolution and effective communication, serving individuals and businesses.  Previously Ms. LaRose served as President and CEO of The KLM Group, Inc., from 1995 until 2011, a family business she co-founded with her sister and another business partner.  KLM provided onsite marketing services specializing in the marketing of affinity and co-branded credit cards.  Her responsibilities included organizing the acquisition, retention and management of hundreds of independent contractors in the field to deliver a financial services product for Fortune 100 financial institutions including Bank of America, First Union, and JP Morgan Chase, where KLM was one the largest minority vendors in their vendor base. Ms. LaRose started her career in public accounting.

Ms. LaRose earned an MS in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University where her thesis took a look at “Families in Business: Conflict in a Dynamical System.”  Ms. LaRose is a trained mediator and received her training from Columbia University, and Advanced Family and Divorce Training from The Center for Mediation and Training, New York, NY. As a former CEO she is uniquely positioned to understand the complexity and challenges of the position within the different contexts of organization and family, allowing her to add value in helping to facilitate shifts in relationships and whole brain leadership development while considering the stakes for the organization as a whole.  She has previously served as program coordinator and assistant researcher at Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity (AC4), The Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Research Assistant at the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University.  

She is currently developing a course collaborating with Kathy Goodman for the NECR Program at Columbia, NECR5150 Family Business and Conflict: How to navigate the nexus between family ties and business disputes, where we examine what makes family businesses fall apart and what keeps them together.Karen has previously been a Teaching Associate at Columbia University in the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution program for Interpersonal Dynamics, a class looking at the influences that shape who we are and emotional intelligence. Ms. LaRose has also taught as an Adjunct Professor of Mediation at The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterrey, and mediates with the Connecticut Children's Law Center in Hartford, CT.  Ms. LaRose received her BS in Accounting from Drexel University in Philadelphia and her MBA from The Fox School of Business at Temple University in Philadelphia.  Ms. LaRose has also studied at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and has completed The Tuck School of Business-WBENC Executive Program.  Ms. LaRose is certified to administer, interpret and coach based on the results of the Emotional Intelligence Assessment (EQ-I 2.0) and the Neethling Brain Instrument (NBI).

http://sps.columbia.edu/negotiation-and-conflict-resolution/faculty

She is a member of the Association of Conflict Resolution, American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution and a member of the Board of Directors of two local organizations in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.  

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