Empowering through Education

Karen Wood is Sr. Director of Global Policy at Panthera, a conservation non-profit focused on the recovery of wild cat populations around the world. She leads the development of Panthera’s science-based policy positions and its strategy for shaping international conservation policy through the lens of wild cats. From 2015-2020, she was Panthera’s Sr. Director of Communications.

Before returning to the non-profit world in 2009, Karen spent 11 years as a vice president at CNET Networks, the pioneering technology media company that was acquired by CBS in 2008. During her tenure in both external and internal-facing communications roles, Karen helped to grow CNET from a just-gone-public, 200 person start-up to one of the highest valued and most visited Internet media companies in the world.

A graduate of Vassar, Karen began her career at the March of Dimes and has pursued mission-driven work consistently as an employee, volunteer and board member. She lived in London, San Francisco and Boston before returning to her native New York.

An avid gardener and cook with two grown children, Karen resides with her husband and their rescue dog in New Rochelle, NY. She graduated from Vassar College with a BA in French Literature.