Karen is a Professor in the School of Management, part of the Wellington School of Business and Government (WSBG).

From June 2025 to Dec 2026, Karen is on secondment as the Project Lead - He Kokonga Whare a Kitea at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.  He Kokonga Whare e Kitea is a partnership with Canterbury University and funded by the TEC. It is a programme of work that aims to accelerate student success. The long-term objective is to facilitate a sector-wide approach, where individual interventions can be scaled up to impact the greatest number of learners. 

Karen has a passion for teaching and was awarded Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2025. She was the WSBG Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) from 2019 to 2024, and received a University Teaching Excellence Award in 2013. She mainly teaches on the undergraduate and postgraduate tourism management programmes and supervises Master's and PhD students. She also leads the WSBG’s Executive MBA Non-profit Advisory Project, which has involved students working with over sixty local and national organisations on a variety of strategic and operational challenges. 

Karen was appointed as a Visiting Professor at Newcastle University Business School (UK) in 2024, and was elected as a CAUTHE Fellow (Council for Australasian Universities Tourism and Hospitality Education) in 2023. She has served on the CAUTHE Executive, was the Inaugural Chair of the Tourism Educator Aotearoa (TEA) and continues to advocate for tourism education at secondary and tertiary levels. 

In 2019 Karen was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to volunteering and education. She is Chair of Te Puna Tautoko Volunteer Wellington, a previous Chairperson of Volunteering New Zealand, and regularly works with not-for-profit organisations to deliver professional development training to those managing volunteers and promoting volunteerism. For a decade, she put her event and volunteering knowledge into practice as event director of the annual Thorndon Fair.

She is an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Vacation Marketing and The Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management.