Overview

Karen Morton is a nationally recognized Fortune 100 C-suite executive, board director, and governance leader with more than 25 years of experience guiding enterprise transformation, enabling disciplined growth, and mitigating organizational risk. Most recently, she served as Executive Vice President and Global Chief Compliance Officer of Liberty Mutual Insurance. A trusted advisor to boards and leadership teams, she brings deep governance and compliance risk management expertise, leveraging private and public-sector legal experiences to provide strategic insights into the evolving and complex regulatory landscape.

Career History

As a board-facing executive at Liberty Mutual Insurance, Morton provided oversight on governance, risk, privacy, and building an effective global compliance program—reporting to the Board Risk Committee and serving as a Board Member for the company’s $100B AUM investment entity. In her most recent role as Executive Vice President and Global Chief Compliance Officer at Liberty Mutual, Morton elevated compliance as a risk-based strategy partner to the business. In this role, she embedded compliance risk management into enterprise strategy, partnered with the Chief Information Security Officer to establish global cyber risk response protocols, and fostered a culture of integrity across 22 countries. She also redefined the role of compliance as a strategic partner to the business.

Previously, Morton was Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Corporate Litigation and Coverage. She successfully resolved high-stakes disputes, including a $6B commercial arbitration, and led data-driven reforms that reduced outside counsel fees. Earlier, she held legal leadership roles in employment, benefits, executive compensation, and corporate real estate, where she supported M&A due diligence for $8B in acquisitions
and oversaw the development of Liberty’s current 22-story headquarters in Boston.

She began her career in the public sector, serving as Assistant Corporate Counsel for the City of Boston, Senior Staff Attorney at the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, and Attorney and Advisor to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Morton serves as Chair of the Nominating & Governance Committee on the Board of Trustees at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital), and as Board Chair of Bridge Over Troubled Waters, a nonprofit dedicated to serving homeless and at-risk youth.

She received numerous awards for her leadership, including the Good Apple Award from the Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, the Academy of Women Achievers Award from YW Boston, the Ida B. Wells Award from Massachusetts Black Women Attorneys, and the All Inclusive Individual Leadership Award from Color Magazine. She was also named a Woman of Influence by the Harvard Club of Boston and an Elite 100 Leader by Diversity Woman Media.

Personal

Morton holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tufts University and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law. She is based in Boston, MA, where she lives with her husband, Kenneth. Karen enjoys spending time with her family and friends, traveling, community service, supporting the next generation of leaders, and taking hip-hop Zumba classes.