Karen Kahn | Influence 100

Karen Kahn 

Chief Communications Officer 
HP
US

 

 

 In 2015, Karen Kahn left Broadcom after nearly five years to become CCO for HP, which at the time had just completed its split from the enterprise business. Last year, she joined the company’s executive leadership team, reporting directly to president and chief executive officer Dion Weisler. 
 
The move came after HP CMO Antonio Lucio — who worked with Kahn on an impressive diversity initiative — left for Facebook. The diversity push, which has seen HP mandate that its marketing agencies take concrete steps to increase the number of women and people of color in key creative and strategy roles, continues, with renewed urgency in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests this summer, and Kahn has since partnered with PRSA New York to recognize and celebrate agency diversity. ”You can only retain people if you can meet them where they live," she says.

She has also articulated a clear vision for HP’s mission: “Technology should democratize opportunities for all people. It should and can empower businesses of all sizes, in all parts of the world, to grow and thrive,” she says. Kahn was named to the Holmes Report’s Innovator 25 last year, and received our SABRE Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in 2019.