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Karen has spent 38 years with HLM.  She started as an Apprentice aged 17, joined the board in 2000, was Managing Director from 2017 to 2024 and remains a key member of the HLM Board as Director of Social Impact and Inclusion.  Karen is passionate about creating an inclusive environment that enables every person to reach their full potential. She’s also Diversity Inclusion & Belonging Board Sponsor, driving a culture of equality throughout the business. 

Karen’s commitment to the development of others led her to design the HLM Academy, a personal and professional development framework helping everyone to reach their full potential.  This created the environment and pathway to support the transition of the next generation of leaders from within, enabling a new future Board to evolve in 2024.  Ownership succession has also been a particular focus and she helped lead the business to employee ownership in 2020 putting 100% of the company’s ownership in a trust for the benefit of its employees.

Karen is part of the RIBA Future Leaders Steering Group and EDI Leaders Group, and contributor to national media and broadcasts on the subject of gender balance and inclusion. She was also part of the Trailblazer Group which developed two Architectural Apprenticeship Standards providing a long-awaited, more diverse route of entry into the architectural profession.  

Karen held the position of President of The Sheffield Chamber of Commerce between 2022-2024 focussed on skills and improving social mobility.  She continues to co-Chair the South Yorkshire Skills Advisory Board and is Chair of the South Yorkshire Institute of Technology. 

In 2017, Karen was shortlisted for Building Magazine’s Women of the Year award, and featured in the Women in Real Estate List 2019.  She won two Institute of Directors awards for Yorkshire and the North East in the categories of ‘Small to Medium Business’, and ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’.  In 2022, she won the Construction News and New Civil Engineer Inspiring Women in Construction and Engineering award for ‘Inspirational Leadership’, and the Construction News Workforce award for ‘Inspiring Women in Construction’.  In 2024 she was one of 3 shortlisted in the Architects Journal Changemaker of the Year award.

Maximising Social Value is one of HLM’s six strategic objectives and through their Thoughtful Design Toolkit and approach, their ambition is to drive objectives through every stage of a project to achieve outcomes which continue to impact people and places for generations to come.

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