Awards & Reviews

Southeast Asia All Stars
IDP Education Limited

Leadership Impact
^{Finalist, 2019}

Rising Stars Leadership Award
^{Finalist, 2018 & 2019}

Terrific Transformation
^{Nominee, 2018}

Global Excellence Awards
IDP Education Limited

Terrific Transformation
^{Awardee, 2019}

Outstanding Leadership
^{Nominee, 2018}

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“It’s been an absolute pleasure to work alongside Karen. Her dedication to creating exceptional user experiences is evident in everything she does. Karen’s ability to conduct thorough customer and competitive research has been a game-changer for our team. She possesses a remarkable talent for transforming high-level and sometimes ambiguous ideas into clear and efficient UX designs and prototypes.

Karen is a clear communicator, an exceptional teammate, and a consummate collaborator, thriving in our fast-paced startup environment. Her creativity and adaptability have been invaluable, especially when juggling multiple projects with pressing deadlines. Her passion for design and commitment to continuous learning is absolutely inspiring.

Her flexibility, collaborative spirit, and insistence on the highest quality UX have inspired us daily. Karen has been instrumental in our software development life cycle, seamlessly wearing many hats including product manager and QA alongside her role as product designer. Her contributions have not only elevated our products but have also significantly enriched our team dynamics.”

— Dave Sohnchen, Passionate Product Leader | Leading Product Vision and Execution | Ex-Disney

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“5 on 5. Would definitely recommend 👌.”

— Praharsh Bhatt, Founder of Multiverse Software & Senior Software Developer

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“I am grateful to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Karen through several projects at uWaterloo. Her tenacious and inclusive approach is outstanding, complemented by an impressive attention to detail and an exceptional ability to adapt to technical challenges. Karen consistently sets a high standard, guiding her peers towards excellence through her exemplary leadership and mentorship. She would bring significant value to any team fortunate enough to have her as a member.”

— Elijah Robert, Multidisciplinary Designer | Digital Experience Innovation

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“I had the opportunity to work with Karen on a number of academic projects that demanded a unique blend of skillsets and collaboration efforts amongst teams of different sizes; each with different breadths of expertise. The scope of these projects ranged from developing a video presentation to prototyping a high-fidelity mobile application for a speculative design scenario.

From start to finish, Karen propelled each team forward through her unparalleled design insights, innovative solutions, and proactive leadership. More than that, she fostered an environment whereby everyone was encouraged to contribute equally and where all propositions were considered. She is nothing but patient, reliable, supportive, and encouraging 100% of the time; offering and taking the time to mentor our teams in platforms and software of her expertise.

With her extensive repertoire of skills and user-centred approach, I would not hesitate to recommend Karen for dependable, meticulous, and detail-oriented product design.”

— Andre D.J., Graduate Student at University of Waterloo | Digital Experience Innovation

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“It was an absolute pleasure collaborating with Karen on our recent projects where I served as the UX researcher, while Karen led the user interface design. Throughout our four-month partnership, Karen’s proactive approach and dedication to delivering results stood out. She consistently asked clarifying questions, ensuring our team stayed aligned and focused on our objectives. Karen’s commitment to quality and efficiency enabled us to deliver high-quality prototypes in record time, incorporating insights from our research seamlessly. Moreover, Karen’s willingness to mentor and empower her peers through demo sessions and software walkthroughs exemplifies her outstanding leadership and teamwork skills. For any team seeking a dedicated and empowering product designer with UI skillsets, Karen is undoubtedly the ideal candidate.”

— Betty Alemayehu, Process Improvement | Lean Green Belt | UX | Product Design

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“Karen’s work at Hope and Healing International was exceptional.  She provided detailed analysis of our platforms and audience. She helped us identify and benchmark against key competitors.  She worked to improve our process of evaluating our performance and helped strengthen our ability to communicate our Brand clearly and in a meaningful way to our target demographic.

Karen is excellent at self-management, proactive in her communication and highly results orientated.  Karen produces work results at an impressive speed.  Karen is a strong team player.  Karen demonstrates a can-do approach. [She] took full responsibility for her work efforts; [and] uses creativity and design elements to increase interest and relevance in her presentations and highlights key content.”

— Jill Bartley, Chief Operations Officer

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“Karen is an absolute pleasure to work with, she is detail oriented, dedicated and has produced some of the best research that is informing and driving our marketing initiatives forward.”

— Jhanelle Alleyne, Social Media Coordinator

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“I consider myself lucky to had been Karen’s colleague during our time together as Interactive Media Management students at Centennial College.

In this intensive postgraduate program, I worked on copious assignments with her the most, including my two most important, semester-long projects. She taught me about graphic design, research, analytics, marketing, social media, and more. Her plethora of diverse skills helped me more times than I can count.

Most of all, it was through her that I came to understand invaluable interpersonal skills that you only really learn in theory at school. It’s not enough to be responsible, organized, and hard-working; you have to be empathetic, encouraging, dependable, patient. Smart enough to realize someone’s mistakes, but wise enough to help them improve in a nurturing manner—and Karen is all the above. She’s a true inspiration: the reason why I can even call myself a strong employee and a better person today.

A company is only as great as the people who work there—but a company is extraordinary by tenfold when Karen works there.”

— Renzo Carlos, Product Designer

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“Karen is absolutely brilliant and was a joy to work with. She was the Swiss army knife of our team, displaying high competence in all endeavors assigned to her. She was proficient in both digital and traditional marketing, delivering tasks such as web admin/content loading, platform management, social media marketing, copywriting, reporting and more.

She is well-rounded, collaborative, transparent, communicative, professional and highly skilled. I worked with her for almost 3 years early in her career and observed her rapid development as a marketing and design professional. She is one of the fastest and most eager learners I’ve met.

I’m confident she will be an invaluable asset to any team.”

— Mikhail “Miko” Jao, Regional Customer Experience Manager, SEA

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“Karen is a pleasure to work with. We worked together for about a year and I was surprised to know that she was a fresh graduate that time because the quality of her work was at par with, and sometimes even better than, more experienced employees.

What I liked most about Karen was the fact that she was multi-talented. Aside from working our events from start to finish, she was also capable of editing artworks, managing the website, launching digital advertisements, and leading the event team. She was an asset to the team and the company.”

— Lara Jane Mendoza, Country Marketing Manager