Karen Lawson Photo

Karen Lawson

CEO, Slingshot

Sydney

Karen Lawson is an award winning business executive and leader in the digital industry. As the CEO of Slingshot, Australia’s leading corporate accelerator program, Karen is using her proven experience in driving reinvention and transformation to help the world’s biggest brands to stay ahead of disruption.

Under Karen’s leadership Slingshot is recognised as the #1 corporate accelerator in Australia, having accelerated more startups and run more corporate programs than any other other provider. Karen has grown the total market capitalisation of its alumni to over $228m having accelerated over 115 businesses. It’s a proven curriculum is now taught at university. The $15m Slingshot Venture Fund has invested $2.5m in VC capital to early stage founders driving innovation, economic growth and employment. Slingshot has worked across many different industries from fintech, healthtech, membertech and HR and travel with leading organisations such as Qantas, Lion, SEEK, Hudson, HCF, Amadeus, ING along with multiple year contracts for state and federal governments.

Most recently Slingshot launched a new disruptive global platform, CoVentured to connect corporates and startups together for mutual growth. It launched late 2017 with 25 corporates such as West Pac, Australia Post and Woolworths with over 1500 startups joining within the first few weeks.

Prior to her role at Slingshot, Karen served as CEO of CareerOne, a joint venture between News Limited and Monster Worldwide. With a remit to forge a new digital strategy, Karen reinvented the traditional job board into a leading targeting and digital business offering media, employer branding, SaaS and sourcing solutions. CareerOne went on to be awarded a spot in the coveted BRW ‘Top 50 most innovative companies’ list for 2014.

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