Karen E. Stanton (nee McCracken)
Owner and Director

Karen braved the new world as an independent consultant in 2015 when starting KARENMC.COM Limited with over 20 years' experience; having helped hundreds of organisations implement business systems.  She's now happily working alongside long-standing business partners such as Touchstone Spend Management and eTS Dynamics where she's able to add to their skills portfolio and continue doing what she does best.

Born in Barrow-in-Furness, Karen left school and joined VSEL to start an Electrical Engineering Apprenticeship in 1981.  She enjoyed ten happy years in the shipyard fulfilling various roles such as Electrician, Draughtswoman, Quality Assurance Engineer, Through-life Support Engineer, etc., and was lucky enough to be introduced to IT back in the days of floppy disks and Lotus Symphony!  Microsoft was just about to change the world forever with its Windows applications however, and Karen was very fortunate to find herself working alongside an inspirational external contractor both willing and able to encourage / guide her passion for developing IT skills through self-learning. 

Having created spreadsheets and databases for everything she could think of at home (from personal finances to music libraries and gin rummy statistics), she decided to look for any opportunities where she could use these newly found skills and embark on a new career.

Karen therefore took a peak outside the shipyard gates to see what the world beyond Barrow and nuclear submarines looked like.  She was lucky enough to come across (quite accidentally, but that's another story) a couple of chaps willing to take a chance on her and see if those self-taught skills could be used to help their customers get more from their finance systems.  The rest as they say "is history", as this chance meeting resulted in Karen joining Tate Bramald Ltd in 1992 (acquired by Touchstone in 2004) and she spent the next twenty years helping hundreds of customers as either Consultant, Business Analyst, Project Manager, Director of Projects or Account Manager; all with a focus on enhancing / optimising business processes and systems (Finance, CRM, Procurement & BI).

Karen is still as passionate as ever about the work she does; and her enthusiastic approach sees her continue working with market leading partners such as Touchstone Spend Management and eTS Dynamics to help their customers address business and/or system challenges with a big smile! 

You can contact Karen through any of the organisations below ...