Karen Pittman
Karen Pittman is a founding partner of , a new consulting firm established in 2021 to increase the rate at which leaders transform knowledge into power to change the odds that all children and youth will thrive. In 2025, Knowledge to Power Catalysts took over the ownership of Youth Today, a trusted news source for the youth development fields. She acts as Youth Today鈥檚 Publisher and Editor-in-Chief.
Over the course of her career Karen has held senior leadership roles at the Urban Institute, the Children鈥檚 Defense Fund, and Academy for Educational Development, where she co-founded the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research in 1990. She stepped down from that role in 1994 to serve as director of the short-lived President's Crime Prevention Council during the first Clinton administration. She subsequently served as a Vice President of the International Youth Foundation, promoting youth development programs and policies in 18 countries. While at IYF, she worked with General Colin Powell to create America鈥檚 Promise and launched the Forum for Youth Investment, which she spun off in 1998 with co-founder Merita Irby, who is now also a partner in KP Catalysts.
Karen is author of three books and dozens of articles and commentaries on youth issues. She has served on numerous boards focused on education and youth development including those of the Kauffman Foundation, the Educational Testing Service, YouthBuild and the National Center for Children in Poverty. Karen also served on The Aspen Institute鈥檚 National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, a national effort to unite leaders to re-envision what constitutes success in our schools. She currently serves as a board member for Attendance Works, the Center for the Developing Adolescent, ASU Teachers College/Next Education Workforce Initiative and the Special Olympics鈥� National Education Leadership Network.
