The Woman
Behind the Work
Karen Craggs is a Kenyan-born Canadian whose personal journey shaped a 25-year career at the intersection of healing, justice, and systemic change. She works with nonprofits, governments, Fortune 500 companies, and global institutions because she has lived what she teaches.
From Nairobi to the world stage
Karen grew up in Nairobi in a mixed-race family that looked polished from the outside and held quiet pain within. Her father was British, her mother Indian, her brother Black and adopted. Racial slurs were hurled at her family on the street while love held them together inside the home. She understood from childhood that systems could fail people even when people did not fail each other.
"Your struggle can be somebody else's survival guide. Your story, no matter how broken and painful, can be somebody else's hope."
At 16, she stood in a children's cancer ward in Nairobi. A four-year-old girl with a tumour ran toward her with her arms outstretched, as though Karen were the safest place in the room. That moment gave her a decision that shaped everything after: she would spend her life helping people find hope, and changing the systems that let it die.
25 years of building what others only talk about
Awards & Honours
The full picture
Karen lives in Toronto with her husband, three hockey-playing children, and five pets. She practices Reiki healing and organizes full moon healing circles. The same belief runs through all of it: that transformation begins from the inside.
The hibiscus flower she wears in her hair connects her to Kenya, to her roots, and to the reminder that beauty and resilience grow in the same soil.
Whether under a tree in rural Ghana or in a boardroom filled with C-suite executives, Karen is at home in front of any audience.
She describes herself as the underdog who fights for all underdogs. The cancer ward at 16. The racism aimed at her family. The grief and the healing. She brings all of it into every room she enters, and she believes that is what makes the work land.