Karen van Bergen

Karen van Bergen brings nearly 30 years of experience in marketing, communications and public affairs to her role as chief executive officer of Porter Novelli, with extensive agency- and client-side experience.

Prior to being named CEO in December of 2012, Karen was senior partner and managing director of the agency's New York office. Before that, she was a senior partner and senior vice president at Fleishman Hillard, and the global lead for OneVoice – an integrated Omnicom offering that serves Royal Philips Electronics. As the global leader for OneVoice, van Bergen grew a 600-person consulting team across more than 80 countries. Before running OneVoice, Karen was regional director for the Netherlands and Central and Eastern Europe for Fleishman Hillard, working with global clients like NBC Universal, VISA and Unilever, among others.

Before Fleishman Hillard, Karen served two stints with McDonald’s totaling more than 13 years. She was chief of staff, vice president of corporate affairs for McDonald’s Europe, joining as part of a new management team that introduced and executed a highly successful new European strategy. She also held the director of marketing, communications and government relations post for McDonald’s Central Europe/Central Asia division. Earlier in her career, she was director of corporate affairs in Europe for the Outboard Marine Corporation.

For Karen, the key to successfully managing and growing large teams or large offices is a genuine investment in people. She believes passionately that when team members are constantly challenged to learn more and do their best, given opportunities to develop and empowered to look out for one another, creativity will flourish, clients will thrive and staff will “come to work whistling.”

Karen earned her master’s degree in law and political sciences from Leiden University in the Netherlands. She earned her undergraduate degree from Elzendaal College, also in the Netherlands.