Karen Grattan is the Founder and CEO of Engaging Inquiry. As a senior consultant with over 25 years of experience, Karen is best known for her practice of accompanying impact-focused organizations as they endeavor to stimulate sustainable social and organizational change at scale. She is a weaver of methods and approaches, and especially loves designing novel analytics embedded within participatory organizational processes. Karen has supported various Non-Governmental and US Government clients in policy and strategy-making, including The Omidyar Group where she has been supporting the development of the systems practice being used by its initiative teams and board. Karen is co-author of the The Omidyar Group’s Systems Practice workbook, which is also the centerpiece of a +Acumen course. 

Karen and her team work primarily in global philanthropy, international development, urban planning, and public health. The types of challenges that partners bring to her include exposing racism in their systems, addressing inequity in health access and outcome, healing trauma and reweaving the social fabric after war, countering violent extremism, pollution, population growth, citizen engagement in “Smart” cities, informal economies and violence against women, and more! Prior to founding Engaging Inquiry, Karen consulted with US government clients in integrating qualitative systems and conflict analysis into quantitative modeling and simulation to support strategic-level resourcing decisions. She also spent 12 years designing, implementing and managing clinical and community-based research programs at Duke and Carolinas healthcare systems in North Carolina. Karen has degrees in public health, organizational learning and development, as well as conflict analysis and resolution.