Karen Horting

Karen Horting, MS ’99, MBA ’00

Chief Executive Officer
Society of Women Engineers

Karen Horting, CAE, is Executive Director & CEO for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), a 43,000 member organization founded in 1950. SWE is the driving force that establishes engineering as a highly desirable career aspiration for women.

With more than 25 years of experience in sales, marketing, and fund development, Ms. Horting came to SWE in March 2004 from the New York Academy of Sciences where she served as Director of Strategic Planning, overseeing the Academy’s development activities and long-range organizational planning.  Prior to NYAS, Ms. Horting worked at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) managing both marketing and fund development on a global level for Science’s Next Wave, a ground-breaking career development website for graduate students and postdocs in STEM.

Ms. Horting has a BS in Biology from Northern Illinois University and she earned her MBA from Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves on the FIRST Robotics Board of Directors, the Automation Federation Board of Directors, the STEM Ed Coalition Board of Directors, and the Leadership Circle of the 50K Coalition. In 2019 she received the Association Forum’s Inspiring Leader award.