Ambassador Karen Kornbluh is the Executive Vice President of External Affairs and holds responsibility for leading Nielsen’s global efforts in key areas, including privacy strategy, public policy, and corporate social responsibility.

Previously, Karen was the U.S. Ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Under her leadership, the U.S. convened government, technology, and business leaders to develop the first global Internet Policymaking Principles. She led efforts to open access to the OECD’s data and to strengthen its anticorruption efforts. She worked with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to launch both the Gender Initiative and the Middle East-North Africa Women's Business Forum.

Karen served as policy director for President Barack Obama when he served in the Senate. In the Clinton Administration, she was deputy chief of staff at the Treasury Department and director of the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at the Federal Communications Commission. Earlier, Karen was a management consultant at Telesis and an economic forecaster at Townsend-Greenspan & Company.

Karen founded the New America Foundation's Work and Family Program and is a senior fellow for Digital Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Karen has written extensively about technology policy, women, and family policy for The Atlantic, The New York Times and The Washington Post. New York Times columnist David Brooks cited her Democracy article “Families Valued,” focused on “juggler families” as one of the best magazine articles of 2006.

Karen earned a bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College and a Master of Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.