Karen E. Wilson is the Founder of GV Partners and an expert on innovative finance, entrepreneurship and impact measurement, working with private sector firms, international organizations, foundations and universities. Among other mandates, Karen has been working as Senior Advisor with the OECD (Well-Being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal Opportunity (WISE) Centre) since 2009, focusing on impact investment, sustainable finance, impact measurement, entrepreneurial finance and the role of private finance for sustainable development. Most recently, she has been leading the OECD’s engagement in an international collaboration on impact measurement and management. She is also an Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School at Oxford University and a Visiting Lecturer at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga as well as other universities.
In addition to other boards and advisory positions, she serves as Chair of the Supervisory Board of the Impact Linked Finance Fund and a board member of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA). She also serves on the G7 Impact Taskforce Working Group on Impact Reporting, Integrity and Transparency, the Global Impact Investment Steering Group (GSG) Strategy Committee and the Climate Advisory Group of the Multi-Asset Climate Solutions Fund of Aberdeen Standard Investments and Big Issue Invest. She served as an advisory board member of the G7 Business for Inclusive Growth (B4IG) Financing Forum from 2019-2020 and is an expert on the Impact Measurement Working Group.
Previously, she was a Senior Fellow at Bruegel, an international economics think tank based in Brussels, and a Senior Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation. Earlier, Karen worked with international venture capital firm, Index Ventures, and before that was part of the senior management team at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. Previously, she served as the Executive Director of the Global Initiative at Harvard Business School. Her earlier experience includes investment banking and management consulting.

She received, with honors, a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and Management from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.