Karen Crum is a Strategy Partner at EY Parthenon and focuses on the role of brand in corporate strategy and value creation across corporates, private equity and start-ups/VC. Prior to her role at EY, she spent 18 years in the agency world as a global strategist in Ogilvy and McCann. A core area of her expertise is helping businesses unlock how their brand strategy can protect and grow their brand value. With hundreds of awards to her name (25 Lions among them, including the inaugural Grand Prix in the Creative eCommerce Lions – now the Creative Commerce Lions – and Gold in Creative Effectiveness for Xbox), she is also an experienced advocate of how both brand and creative underpin business growth and resilience. Karen is also a musician and songwriter and is currently in the middle of recording an album scheduled for release late 2025/early 2026.