Dr. Karen Hardy is Strategic Leadership Advisors LLC's CEO and chief risk officer. She is a scholar-practitioner who has built an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) solution across 12 bureaus from the ground up at the U.S. Department of Commerce (a $7B cabinet-level agency), impacting 47,000 employees. Her program and operation were cited by GAO as a leading practice across the federal government.

As the Deputy Chief Risk Officer, Dr. Hardy was the first to hold this position at the Department, created its first Risk Profile and policy, and established the role of 12 bureau Risk Management Officers. Dr. Hardy was recruited by OMB in 2014 to serve as the Senior Advisor for Risk Management, working side-by-side with the U.S. Controller in establishing ERM policy across the federal government. She is an original contributing author of the revised July 2016 OMB Circular A-123 and is the original author of the ERM language included in OMB Circular A-11. Dr. Hardy is seen as a visionary and master influencer in the field. She has a long history and commitment to developing and adopting risk management across industries. She wrote the first research paper on ERM in government for the IBM Center for the Business of Government 2010. From 2015 to 2017, she was selected as a COSO ERM Advisory Board member. In 2014, she received the Most Promising New Textbook Award for her book "Enterprise Risk Management: A Guide for Government Professionals. It reached #6 on the Amazon Risk Management Top 100 List.

Dr. Hardy's leadership and influence in the field of Enterprise Risk Management are further demonstrated by her role as the founder of the Association for Federal Enterprise Risk Management. Her significant contributions were recognized when she received the Risk Management Hall of Fame Award in 2017. She is also a Fellow at the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) and a Visiting Fellow at IBM.

Strategic Leadership Advisors Joins Team for DOD Study