Karen Lindsey

Dr. Karen Lindsey is a teacher, mentor, and leadership consultant. In 2021, she joined Elon University as an assistant professor, School of Communications, Department of Strategic Communications. In 2024, she began serving as Faculty Director in Residence, where she serves as supports the academic and social well-bieng of students. Dr. Lindsey researches, writes, and speaks about the complex intersections of race, gender, and organizational leadership.

Prior to joining Elon University she served as a visiting lecturer at Texas Christian University in the Bob Schieffer College of Communications where she taught public relations, strategic writing, and campaigns courses. Her additional higher education experience includes serving as Associate Vice President for Retention and Career Development at Mississippi College and as the Assistant Director of the Center for Career and Professional Development at Texas Christian University. She is passionate about continuous and experiential learning to help students transition into meaningful lives after college. Dr. Lindsey continues to serve as a mentor to many of her former students across institutions and industries. 

Dr. Lindsey has extensive corporate communications, public relations, media relations, and marketing experience. Prior to teaching, Dr. Lindsey was Vice President of the Higher Education sector in the Dallas, Texas office of Edelman, one of the world’s leading public relations firms. Her primary clients included Arizona State University, Denison University, The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. In this role, she and her team helped university presidents establish thought leadership in print, broadcast, and on various social media platforms. She created crisis communication plans, conducted media coaching, provided overall reputation management strategies, pitched new business, and led the work of account executives in New York, Washington, D.C., Austin, Houston, and Dallas.

She served as Director of Field Development for Northwestern Mutual, a Fortune 500 financial services company headquartered in Wisconsin where she implemented national recruitment, retention, market development programs and led initiatives to recruit more women as financial representatives. She held advertising sales, corporate communications, media relations, and marketing positions with the Chicago Tribune, U.S. Bank, and Wisconsin Gas (now WE Energies). She was a communication consultant to the U.S. Army and Department of Defense where she completed assignments in Hunstville, Alabama, Washington, D.C., Norfolk, Virginia and Wiesbaden, Germany.

Using her corporate experience in her consultancy, Dr. Lindsey is a trusted advisor to university presidents, non-profit, and corporate leaders on brand safety and reputation management, internal and external strategic communications planning, crisis/incident management, and media relations. Dr. Lindsey is a frequent guest speaker, podcast guest, and advisor to C-suite executives on topics of Brand/Reputation Management, Inclusive Communications, and Internal Communications. She completed a TEDx talk in 2015 and has presented various keynotes to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and other national professional organizations. In 2020, she was selected to present at SXSW in Austin, Texas on the topic of intersections of gender, race, and leadership. She is a member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), and a fellow with the Women in Leadership Development Institute (WLDI). Dr. Lindsey’s community service work includes volunteering with the Alzheimer’s Association, Meals on Wheels, and Girl Scouts, USA. 

In 2024, she co-authored a textbook, "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Strategic Communication: Becoming Culturally Proficient Communicators.”  She believes that inclusion and belonging require more than a program, workshop, or buzzwords. Dr. Lindsey  that the process begins on an individual level by embodying shared values, creating shared meaning, examining our similarities, respecting our differences, and acknowledging historic realities.