Karen was named editor of Plastics News Europe in May 2017. Based in the Netherlands, she has worked as a translator, journalist and editor in the plastics industry for the past thirty years, writing for both Dutch and English language online and print publications. Between 2001 and 2007, she served as chief editor of Kunststof en Rubber, the Dutch-language trade magazine for the plastics industry, after which, preferring to write in English, she moved to PlasticsToday, where she was the European and sustainability editor until 2016.