Karen Clark Cole Email Address

Contributing Writer

Founded in 2000, Blink UX is a Seattle-based user experience research and design firm specializing in digital products. We are dedicated to helping clients achieve their business goals through a flexible user-centered design approach, and our evidence-driven design? services help companies that depend on technology take the guesswork out of delivering great user experiences. Blink UX has worked with hundreds of innovative clients ranging in size and type from start-ups to Fortune 100, including Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, Splunk, Starbucks, HP, Microsoft, NASA, and Nike.

Karen Clark Cole is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Blink UX, an award-winning, global experience design firm, and proud Mphasis company. Blink’s mission is to enrich people’s lives by creating products that people use, love, and remember. Karen's leadership philosophy is grounded in what she calls being a “Possibility Thinker.” Her optimistic, fully present approach to life enables her to turn big visionary ideas into action and plant a seed for what is possible in everyone she meets. On a daily basis, Karen is primarily focused on growth, strategic planning, and upholding Blink's cultural framework. Blink is a user experience (UX) research and design firm, founded in 2000, that works with Fortune 100 to start-up companies to create meaningful digital products, brands, and experiences. With five studios in Austin, Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle, Blink brings over two decades of experience using its evidence-driven design process to projects for major clients such as Amazon, Microsoft, NASA, Oculus, Starbucks, and USAA. Karen began her career studying Fine Arts in Vancouver, BC at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design. She holds a degree in Art History & Visual Arts from the University of Victoria and is a graduate of the Information Technology & Multimedia program from Capilano University, Vancouver, and begin a Ph.D. in Values Driven Leadership at the Benedictine University, IL. Through her work at Blink, Karen was a winner of the 2016 Enterprising Women of the Year award and she was a finalist for Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year award in 2015. In 2016 Blink was listed on Forbes Magazine’s Best 25 Small Companies in America list. Blink won the Puget Sound Business Journal’s Washington’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies award in 2015 and 2012, Seattle Business Magazine’s Tech Impact Silver Award in 2015, The Women President’s Organization’s 50 Fastest-Growing Women Led Companies Worldwide award in 2014, and was listed on Inc. Magazine’s Top 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies in America list in 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012. Karen is the Executive Director for the non-profit organization she founded in early 2014, Girls Can Do. Girls Can Do is an event series for girls with the mission to inspire a generation of Possibility Thinkers and ignite a vision for Equal Opportunity. Karen is an avid Kitesurfer, loves backcountry skiing and running.