Karin Larsen
Hermitage,TN
Summary
Results-driven management professional with a proven ability to lead teams to success. Strong focus on team collaboration, operational efficiency, and achieving measurable outcomes. Adept at strategic planning, process improvement, and fostering a culture of accountability and excellence. Known for adaptability and consistently meeting changing organizational needs.
Overview
26
26
years of professional experience
Work History
Sr. Manager, Business Strategy and Integration, Social Responsibility and Human Rights
AMAZON
London, UK And Nashville, TN
01.2022 - Current
- Leads a team of human rights professionals to develop and facilitate long-term, worker-centric human rights risk management strategies bespoke to the needs of each of our internal customer businesses, looking for opportunities to integrate and embed social responsibility and human rights principles and considerations into business teams' existing processes, mental models, and methodologies, or to help them build new ones with this foundation
- Designed and implemented a human rights risk management strategy for Amazon's global logistics and transportation businesses, securing senior leadership support and resources for program expansion
- Manages internal business relationships sitting at the intersection of Amazon's Operations businesses and the Social Responsibility team
- Supports multiple complex relationships across the company, and addressed new business issues as they arise to translate problems and integrate effective solutions with an eye toward automation, scalability, and efficiency
- Handles both day-to-day issues and longer term, global and program-wide strategies and initiatives
- Critical partner in key program developments across the team, including communicating industry initiatives, and working with external stakeholders to manage Amazon's growing and diverse supply chain
- Mentored junior team members for career advancement, fostering a pipeline of future leaders within the organization.
Sr. Risk Manager, Workers' Compensation
AMAZON
Nashville, TN
01.2020 - 01.2022
- Built a new program of centralized Workers' Compensation Specialists who support Amazon's North American Delivery Stations, creating a $7.7 MM cost avoidance in the first year through driving down average incurred claim cost
- Manages and monitors Amazon's Workers' Compensation program, developing and collaborating successful partnerships among associates, third party administrators, internal business partners and external service providers
- Enhanced risk management framework by collaborating with cross-functional teams, ensuring alignment with business objectives.
Communications Lead, AWS Field Communications
AMAZON
Seattle, WA
01.2019 - 01.2020
- Led global communications for the Director of Worldwide Enablement
- Served as a thought leader and subject matter expert, partnered with leadership to build a program that raises visibility for Worldwide Enablement initiatives and motivates employees to act
Sr. Program Manager, HR Support, Escalations, Insights, and Personas
AMAZON
Seattle, WA
01.2017 - 01.2019
- Designed, built and provided strategic leadership for four Employee Experience programs within Amazon HR
- HR Support provides a dedicated channel for global HR to get expert, real-time help when they need it
- Escalations dives deep into executive escalations and other 'high-standard deviation' negative employee experiences, identifying root cause, and driving robust and programmatic long-term fixes
- Insights actively mines and analyzes contact data from our HR Support program and escalation data to pull out themes and trends from the data while driving end-to-end resolution with our partner teams on projects and corrective action that come out of those insights
- Personas is a design-thinking employee-driven program that creates personas, journey maps, and other tools to enable our HR teams to start with the employee and work backwards
Managing Editor, Operations Internal Communications (Strategic Communications PR)
AMAZON
Seattle, WA
01.2016 - 01.2017
- Managed an editorial calendar spanning multiple internal communication channels while working directly with stakeholders at all levels throughout Amazon to create stories that could be proliferated through multiple channels
- Produced a global quarterly internal communications print magazine, including curation, development, and execution of the content while working with PR partners across the globe to ensure the magazine represented the global culture of Amazon
- Developed and delivered on a plan to reduce quarterly magazine costs by almost 65%, while increasing our digital presence across the company
Manager, Content, Learning and Voice HR Services
AMAZON
Seattle, WA
01.2013 - 01.2016
- Designed, built and led a team of professionals and leaders who provide support in the areas of content, communications, and learning across a shared-services organization located in the US, India, Costa Rica, and Prague, encompassing HR program management, benefits, payroll, and HR operations, including an HR Help Desk
- Built team, function and strategy from the ground up
- Developed the voice for all of HR Services' programs and related employee, manager and HR self-service tools
- Ensured that content was clearly written, audience-specific, and met legal and marketing requirements
- Developed and deployed strategy for communicating with a diverse and disparate global population of employees using a variety of communication methods
- Developed and drove marketing, brand and learning strategies for HR across multiple geographies
Training Manager/Technical Writer
CASCADE REGIONAL BLOOD SERVICES
Federal Way, WA
01.2009 - 01.2013
- Developed and delivered a variety of training curricula (technical and soft-skill) across the organization
- Proofed all internal and external marketing content for the CRBS website, marketing campaigns, and fundraising materials
- Converted technical language into everyday language that could be understood by all levels of the company
Payroll Tax Supervisor
TRUEBLUE INC.
Tacoma, WA
01.2009 - 12.2009
- Managed a team of tax and unemployment specialists responsible for paying and filing taxes for five subsidiaries including Labor Ready, CLP, Spartan Staffing, TLC and Planetechs
- Interpreted complex federal and state tax laws and worked closely with government agencies to ensure compliance
Team Leader, U.S. Payroll Services
WEYERHAEUSER COMPANY
Federal Way, WA
01.2005 - 12.2008
- Managed a team of 18 payroll specialists responsible for processing accurate and timely payroll for over 45,000 U.S
- Employees
- Provided guidance, direction and expertise in the role of Business Functional Manager for a large Payroll Process Standardization project that ensured Weyerhaeuser's compliance and adherence to federal laws guiding our pay practices
- Led the payroll implementation (including the RFP process) for the outsourcing of U.S
- And Canadian payroll check printing that improved the company's performance and quality metrics on check processing while reducing numerous manual processes and meeting U.S
- And Canadian legal requirements for check printing
Operations Manager
CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL SERVICES
Federal Way, WA
01.2002 - 01.2005
- Managed a high-performance work team across three shifts in a high-production warehouse environment, directly supporting a high-volume print floor
- Responsible for hiring, performance management, coaching, mentoring, training and developing a team of 13+ associates and two supervisors
- Developed, implemented and maintained from the ground up, including all audit activities, a total quality program, Mail Preparation Total Quality Management (MPTQM), similar to ISO 9000, throughout the entire outbound operations of the site saving the company in excess of $60 million annually
Operations Supervisor
CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL SERVICES
Federal Way, WA
01.1999 - 01.2002
- Led team of multi-level associates in a warehouse environment, supporting a high-production operations floor
- Trained, developed, and motivated staff to learn new skills and improve results
- Managed vendor relationships to maximize performance
- Collaborated with associates and superiors to improve processes
- Reported and presented business reviews to senior management
Education
Bachelor of Arts - Liberal Arts
University of Washington, Tacoma
Tacoma, WABachelor of Science - Journalism
University of Maryland University College
Skills
- Strategic Planning
- Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Operations Management
- Cross-functional Team Coordination
- Troubleshooting and problem resolution
- Data-driven decision-making
- Talent Development
- Organizational improvement
- Human Rights Due Diligence
Accomplishments
- Founding Member, Truckers Against Trafficking, 501c3, NGO, www.truckersagainsttrafficking.org
- Board Member, Institute to Combat Trafficking, 501c3
- Awarded, Circle of Excellence: highest award offered at Capital One for successful direction of MPTQM certification program, 2003
- Awarded, ACE Award: highest award offered locally at the Capital One Seattle site for outstanding display of company core values and competencies, 2000
Timeline
Sr. Manager, Business Strategy and Integration, Social Responsibility and Human Rights
AMAZON
01.2022 - Current
Sr. Risk Manager, Workers' Compensation
AMAZON
01.2020 - 01.2022
Communications Lead, AWS Field Communications
AMAZON
01.2019 - 01.2020
Sr. Program Manager, HR Support, Escalations, Insights, and Personas
AMAZON
01.2017 - 01.2019
Managing Editor, Operations Internal Communications (Strategic Communications PR)
AMAZON
01.2016 - 01.2017
Manager, Content, Learning and Voice HR Services
AMAZON
01.2013 - 01.2016
Training Manager/Technical Writer
CASCADE REGIONAL BLOOD SERVICES
01.2009 - 01.2013
Payroll Tax Supervisor
TRUEBLUE INC.
01.2009 - 12.2009
Team Leader, U.S. Payroll Services
WEYERHAEUSER COMPANY
01.2005 - 12.2008
Operations Manager
CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL SERVICES
01.2002 - 01.2005
Operations Supervisor
CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL SERVICES
01.1999 - 01.2002
Bachelor of Arts - Liberal Arts
University of Washington, Tacoma
Bachelor of Science - Journalism
University of Maryland University College