Karen Stanley, Vice President of Finance at Stanley Construction Company, has been named to the Vanderbilt University Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Stanley has shown leadership in alumni engagement at Vanderbilt for the past 10 years as member, and served as Chair of the External Advisory Board for the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. She is an enthusiastic supporter of the Vandy football and basketball programs.

“A lifelong learner, I am deeply passionate about education, engineering, and business leadership. In each of these areas, Vanderbilt was and remains a great foundation and #KeySuccessFactor in my life,” said Stanley. “I am grateful for the opportunity to give back to my alma mater from this position of alumni engagement and leadership. I am thankful to God for the first Vandy grad in my life – my mother! I know she is smiling down at me, just as we were smiling up at her in the 70’s when she earned her PhD from Vanderbilt’s Peabody School of Education.”

Stanley is a former Vice-Chair for Small Business at the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, where she instituted the inclusion of Small Businesses in the first Huntsville Regional Economic Growth Campaign in 2004.

Ms. Stanley earned her bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering, magna cum laude, from Vanderbilt University and Masters degree in the same from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as an MBA from Harvard University.

In service to her alma maters, Karen is immediate Past Chair of the Vanderbilt University Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering External Advisory Council, and she is the Co-President of the Harvard Business School African American Alumni Association.