President and founder of The Griffin Tate Group, Inc., and an internationally recognized expert in the project management discipline, Karen Tate is the co-author of the Project Management Memory Jogger ™, The Advanced Project Management Memory Jogger ™, The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course on Project Management Getting Started in Project Management, A Step By Step Approach to Risk Assessment , and Triz: An Approach to Systematic Innovation . 

Karen has been working with projects and project teams for more than 25 years. She currently serves on the prestigious Project Management Institute’s (PMI) International Board of Directors – a post she’s held for six years. Karen founded The Griffin Tate Group, Inc. in 1994 to provide consulting, training (both on-site and through public workshops), facilitation and course development to small and large organizations in both the private and public sectors.

Prior to forming her own consulting business, Karen worked directly with multiple customers at all levels in organizations. She has managed programs and projects of all types and sizes, in a variety of industries, and has presented, consulted and trained with organizations throughout North America, Europe, South Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Her corporate experience included positions where she was an engineer, a project manager, and a consultant for both internal and external customers.

Karen’s accomplishments included the development of customer satisfaction measures as well as internal measures for analysis and improvement. She worked extensively with clients to define project expectations and requirements and evaluate team performance against benchmarks using surveys and interviews. Karen developed and delivered training to both client and company personnel in both tools and processes. She designed and facilitated key meetings and alliances to achieve joint goals in the most effective and efficient manner.

Karen earned her Project Management Professional Certification (PMP) from PMI and serves on their Education Advisory Group. She holds an MBA from Xavier University, a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and an Engineer in Training (EIT) certification: she has completed extensive coursework in mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University. Additionally, Karen is an adjunct faculty member at Villanova University.