Karen Horting
Executive Director and CEO, Society of Women Engineers

Karen Horting is the executive director and CEO for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), a position she has held since December 31, 2013. With more than 20 years of experience in sales, marketing, and fund development, Horting was most recently the SWE deputy executive director. In this capacity, she was responsible for all fund-development activities for the organization, including corporate membership and SWE’s Corporate Partnership Council, as well as more traditional philanthropy such as foundation and government grants, individual gifts, and bequests. She also oversaw many of the Society’s programs and services, including professional development, K-12 outreach, the annual conference and SWE’s international expansion.

Horting came to SWE in March 2004 from the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), where she served as director of strategic planning, managing the academy’s development activities and long-range organizational planning. Prior to her role with NYAS, Horting worked for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, managing both marketing and fund development on a global level for Science’s Next Wave, a groundbreaking career-development website for graduate students and post-doctorates in science, math and technology. Horting’s experience also includes more than 10 years in the paint and coatings industry in a variety of technical service and marketing functions.

Horting holds a B.S. in biology from Northern Illinois University and an MBA from Johns Hopkins University.

SWE has been a FIRST Strategic Alliance since 2008, and Karen’s leadership has helped significantly grow SWE’s level of support and engagement with FIRST. Karen has also worked to increase the number of SWE volunteers at FIRST events, with more than 1,150 SWE members having volunteered in recent years. SWE has also helped FIRST teams financially, including $1,000 grants for 70 FIRST^® Robotics Competition teams.