Karen Flake
Karen Flake
Chair and Chief Executive Officer
When obtaining her master’s degree (completed in 1987), Karen Flake turned to the research profession as her career. In 1996, she acquired the firm that is now Flake-Wilkerson Market Insights.
As Chair and Chief Executive officer, Karen is the visionary leader of the company. She graduated cum laude from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana with a bachelor’s degree in English. Maintaining a 4.0 in her graduate studies, she received her master’s degree in Interpersonal and Organization Communications from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Well-grounded in communications theory and qualitative research techniques, Karen has been a lead focus group moderator for Flake-Wilkerson.
An active community volunteer, Karen was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Arkansas Development Finance Authority by the governor in 1996. After chairing the board for two years, she stepped down from the agency in December 2002. With about two billion dollars in assets, the Authority is empowered to issue tax-exempt and taxable bonds as well as other debt instruments for housing, education, manufacturing, export finance, agricultural business enterprise, healthcare, municipalities and infrastructure projects.
Karen is a founding member of the Arkansas Quality Award, based on Malcolm Baldrige criteria, and recently chaired that board, as well. In the past, she has served as a certified examiner for the Arkansas Quality Award. Two other associates of Flake-Wilkerson have followed her lead and achieved certification.
From 1997-1999, Karen served as the Chair of the Centers for Youth and Families, a 14-million-dollar, non-profit, mental health agency. The Centers provides residential and day treatment services for youth, family counseling and parenting education, among other services. In 1999, she was presented the Arkansas Mental Health Award in recognition for her contributions to the community. Currently, she serves on the Foundation Board for the Centers, which she will chair for two years beginning July 2003.
Karen is also a founding member of the Arkansas Women’s Leadership Forum and a member of the 1996 class of Leadership America. The Arkansas Business Publishing Group has lauded her as one of the Top 100 Women in Arkansas. In 2001, she and her husband John were named March of Dimes Citizen of the year. She chairs an advisory board for St. Vincent Health System, and is a member of the Little Rock Rotary and Fifty for the Future.
Contact Details:
Flake-Wilkerson Market Insights, LLC
333 Executive Court, Suite 100
Little Rock, AR 72205
Telephone: (501) 217-3258 office
kflake@mktinsights.com