Karen Ouchterloney is a Vice President and Managing Principal at Slayton Search Partners, where she serves clients in the Consumer Practice. Karen partners with CEOs and executive teams across retail, e-commerce and consumer-facing organizations to identify and place senior leaders in finance, merchandising, planning, supply chain, marketing and general management. Her counsel is grounded in firsthand experience running these functions at some of the most recognized brands in the industry.
Karen advises clients on leadership needs across the full breadth of consumer and retail functions, with particular depth in merchandising, finance, operations and marketing roles. Her background as a practitioner gives her a precise understanding of the capability profiles that drive performance in these functions and the ability to evaluate executive talent against the specific demands of a retail or e-commerce environment. She also leads searches in supply chain, planning and general management, drawing on a holistic view of how consumer organizations are structured and how strong functional leadership translates into business results.
Prior to joining Slayton Search Partners, Karen spent more than thirteen years at Kirk Palmer Associates, advancing from Senior Associate to Senior Principal. Before transitioning into executive search, she built a distinguished operating career at leading consumer brands. At Coach, where she spent more than eight years as Divisional Vice President of Merchandise Planning for North America, she led merchandise planning for domestic retail stores and e-commerce, overseeing the buying process, inventory investments and assortment strategy while building and developing a high-performing merchandise planning team.
She subsequently served as Head of Merchandising for Easy Spirit Retail and E-commerce at Nine West Group and held planning and buying roles at J.Crew and Macy’s East earlier in her career.
Karen holds a Master of Business Administration from Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts from Dickinson College.
