By Cory A. Haywood - OW College Intern

In this progressive era, which has triggered a wave of  greater opportunity for women, many are still taking calls and scheduling meetings—but not while sitting behind a receptionist’s desk. Instead, today’s working woman occupies the doctor’s office, the senate seat, the judge’s chamber and the director’s chair. Just name the profession, and you’ll discover that it contains a rapidly growing number of those with an X-chromosome.
Karen A. Clark is one of these new-age women.

Since being promoted in 2008, she has supervised more than 25 employees as the national multicultural market manager for U.S. Bank—one of the fastest growing financial services firms in the country.
“My goal is to continue to satisfy shareholders and perform at a level of excellence in spite of this recession and the near-death blows to the banking industry,” said Clark, who earned her Bachelors Degree in economics from California State University Sacramento.
Clark’s primary job-responsibility is to increase U.S. Bank’s market share with minority and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender customers (GLBT). “Our long term goal is to be the bank of choice for ethnic and GLBT populations in the urban markets of the United States,” she said.
Clark has worked in banking since 1986, when she turned her focus from entertainment to the corporate world, in order to care for two children as her husband struggled to find success in the film industry.
“My greatest accomplishment has been raising two wonderful children who love their mother, pay their own rent, love the Lord, and call from New York City to check on me everyday,” she said.
Now a widow after 25 years of marriage, Clark says that her biggest challenge personally is navigating and maneuvering as a single woman. “I have no one on the home front to watch my back. I am embarking on the biggest venture of my creative life by myself. I will do it, but it’s a new way of doing things for me.”
Outside of the workplace, Clark’s goal is to become a well-established, well-respected spoken word recording artist and live entertainer—which is what she originally aspired to be. Aside from her dreams of an on-stage career, Clark says the sum total of her success, thus far, has been to survive and thrive as an African-American in Fortune 100 companies for more than 25 years. She offers this word of advice to women on how to do the same: “Don’t let dollars be the driving force of what you do. Use all the tools in your toolkit (transferable skills) to sell your brand in order to get what you want and where you want.”

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