Bio

A purpose driven leader, Karen Conway is an internationally recognized healthcare industry strategist and thought leader who applies systems thinking and deep supply chain expertise to advance value and equity for patients and communities, environmental sustainability, and the performance of organizations upon which an effective healthcare system depends. With proven experience as a national board chair, and in government affairs, marketing and communications, Conway advises executives and boards on the implications of market and regulatory trends to attain organic and inorganic growth, mitigate risk and achieve value beyond regulatory compliance. Conway’s cultural competence creates structures that attract diverse stakeholders to collaborate on common objectives without sacrificing individual corporate performance. Her unique ability to construct and communicate a vision, combined with experience in the highly complex, regulated healthcare and energy industries, helps organizations most effectively achieve multiple interdependent objectives around business continuity, diversity and equity, and environmental sustainability. Conway is past national chair of the professional supply chain association for the American Hospital Association, where she fostered development of the Institute for Supply Management Hospital ISM® Report On Business. She is board secretary for the Strategic Marketplace Initiative and is a founder and co-chair of the Healthcare Financial Management Association CFO Advisory Council. Conway is a member of the GS1 Healthcare Global Leadership Team and the healthcare advisory board for CAPS Research, in addition to founding several community not-for-profit organizations addressing health, environmental and economic well-being. Conway has served as an expert adviser to global consultancies, including McKinzey, Booz Allen, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Brookings Institution, and to commercial and government healthcare leaders in the UK, Canada, and Australia, China and Japan. She delivered closing remarks on at a G20 Summit pre-event on health sector sustainability in 2020 and led the supply chain curriculum at the national forum on health equity in 2021. She co-wrote a best-selling book on global leadership published by the Association for Talent Development, in 2013 and was a contributing author for the 2007 Springer publication eBusiness in Healthcare. Conway holds a masters in the Science of Healthcare Delivery from Arizona State University and a bachelor of arts degree in Philosophy from The Colorado College.