Experience

Bridging scholarship, classrooms, and healthcare organizations

My professional path brings together university teaching, healthcare strategy, executive leadership, entrepreneurship, and research translation.

Academic leadership

Marketing education and curriculum development

I teach undergraduate and graduate marketing across multiple California State University campuses, designing courses that connect theory, current research, and professional application.

Inclusive course designApplied projectsResearch literacyEthical AI

My academic work includes course redesign, online-learning quality assurance, student mentoring, university service, invited participation, and consistent evidence of teaching effectiveness.

Explore teaching →

Healthcare leadership

Strategy, access, innovation, and organizational execution

Before entering academia, I spent more than a decade in senior healthcare marketing, market-access, strategic-program, and innovation roles. My work required translating patient, provider, payer, and health-system needs into decisions that organizations could implement.

$1.3BPortfolio leadership across strategic marketing and innovation roles
600+Health-plan relationships managed through market-access leadership
$2,200Reduction in diabetes-related cost per patient associated with a value-based contract
IBM WatsonCollaboration on AI-enabled healthcare solutions

That experience now strengthens my research and teaching by grounding theory in the realities of complex institutions, stakeholder alignment, resource constraints, and implementation.

Professional practice & entrepreneurship

Research-informed strategy and brand building

Selective professional practice

I maintain a selective, research-informed marketing practice that helps small and mid-sized organizations translate consumer insight, research, data, and technology into practical growth strategies.

Engagements may include market research, positioning, customer journeys, go-to-market strategy, AI-supported marketing, and executive-ready recommendations.

Entrepreneurship and brand development

I built a premium chocolate brand from concept to national recognition, applying ethical sourcing, consumer insight, positioning, storytelling, and multichannel market development.

These entrepreneurial experiences provide applied cases for teaching and an additional perspective on how consumers, brands, and organizations create meaning.

Karen M. Blackwell smiling in a yellow outfit against a pink background