Karen Kaplan
Partner
Karen is a recognized leader among communications executives known as much for her tenacity in today’s always-on media world as for her tenure leading one of the South’s top communications firms. With more than 25 years of high-level experience, she currently focuses exclusively on the healthcare industry, helping emerging companies and industry leaders find their voice, build their brand and break through the clutter to effectively engage and activate key stakeholder groups.
As a strategic communications consultant, Karen leads corporate reputation, branding, and thought leadership campaigns for healthcare companies, including athenahealth, the nation’s leading cloud-based provider of electronic health records and GHX, the world’s largest healthcare trading exchange.
For more than 15 years, she served as General Manager of FleishmanHillard (FH) Atlanta, one of the world’s leading communications firms. There she led integrated communications initiatives for some of the world’s leading brands while managing high- performance teams, sustaining a collaborative corporate culture and managing fiscal goals. Joining FH Atlanta in 1998—initially to run its healthcare practice—Karen transformed the office into one of the leading agencies in the Southeast.
She is skilled at developing and executing high-level, corporate communications and branding strategies for private and publicly-held companies. As a seasoned expert in corporate reputation, issues management, crisis communications and media strategy, Karen has worked across virtually every segment of the healthcare industry—from big pharma and health IT to medical device and healthcare reform.
Prior to joining FH, Karen served as public affairs director for Solvay Pharmaceuticals, where she built the company’s first internal and external communications function. She began her career as a daily newspaper reporter before transitioning into public affairs for one of the nation’s largest public employee unions, AFSME. Her agency experience began in Miami for a national firm, PCI, followed by a 10-year stint as executive director of a non-profit healthcare group comprised of leading drug manufacturers, wholesalers and pharmacists. Karen also spent two years at Edelman, a global, independent public relations firm, after relocating to Atlanta from Miami in 1990. Based in the Atlanta area, Karen is originally from Washington, D.C. She and her husband live in Roswell, Georgia. They have three grown sons.