Karen John

Karen John is the founder and CEO of Heartwork, a New York furniture company she launched in 2012 to drag the workplace out of its sea of gray, black, and beige. Trained as an industrial designer in Milan and an engineer at Stanford, with an INSEAD MBA and a former VP of Merchandising stint at Design Within Reach, she rebuilt the most boring category in office design - storage and lockers - into something people actually want to look at. Heartwork builds steel furniture and smart lockers domestically, leans on color as a cultural tool, and has raised a Series A backing John's bet that beauty and durability belong in the same room.