Learning and Talent Development Executive
Karen Maccaro, Ph.D.
Senior leader with over 20 years designing and delivering learning and development programs that transform individuals, teams, and organizations.
Email:
Location:
Boston, MA
A Bit About Me
I’ve spent my career at the intersection of higher education and corporate leadership, building programs that equip people to thrive. My journey has taken me from professor to chief learning officer to CEO of Executive Education at Babson College, ranked #1 globally for Entrepreneurship Education, and founder. Along the way, I’ve led executive education, scaled enterprise learning systems, and built high-performing teams in industries from healthcare tech to media. What connects it all is a passion for designing learning experiences that deliver measurable results for individuals and organizations.
Work Experience
August 2023 - present day
July 2021-August 2023
Managing Partner, Learning Strategy at Optimal Advisor AI. Executive leader in a firm that specializes in designing, developing, and delivering training to bring financial professionals up the AI adoption curve.
Founder & COO: After leaving Morning Brew, I started Chirp Learning & Consulting - my own company geared at helping individuals and organizations grow. I've delivered leadership development programming to companies such as Georgian Venture Capital and Saffron. I also served as a contract Chief Operating Officer for two start-ups with specific, shorter-term needs: CRE Daily and Experience Anatomy.
General Manager of Education at Morning Brew, a start-up division within this media company. Grew revenue from 100K to 2.1M in two years by designing, developing, and delivering a suite of learning products on leadership to early and mid-career business professionals across industries.
August 2019-July 2021
Chief Executive Officer, Executive Education at Babson College. Led The Executive Education and Conference Center arms of Babson College through the pandemic, transforming an entirely F2F business into an online one in 3 weeks. Grew revenue by 20% YOY and increased margin by 15%.
August 2017-August 2019
May 2015 - August 2017
Chief Learning Experience Officer at O'Reilly Media: Designed and developed online learning experiences for O'Really Online Learning and led the team of instructional designers and curriculum builders tasked with training technical professionals.
Chief Learning Officer, athenahealth. Led all onboarding, role-specific, management, and leadership training and coaching programs and services for the organization globally. Served as part of the talent management team responsible for building and deploying competency maps, participating in performance evaluations, talent mapping, and promotion decisions.
