Karen B. Case

Karen Case, Independent Board Member and Vice Chair, CIBC US, boasts 40+ years of commercial banking and real estate finance experience.
As an independent board member, Karen demonstrates high standards of moral integrity, strategic thinking, strong collaborative and consensus-building skills, good judgment, and independent thought, skills developed over her professional career.
For more than a decade, Karen served on the bank’s US Executive Committee (along with numerous other top-of-the-house committees), with operating risk, legal and reputation risk, and enterprise risk matters at the forefront of weekly agendas. Karen challenged assumptions and provided input to the Bank’s annual planning and long-term strategy as well as evaluation of its balance sheet management, capital adequacy, compliance, and risk appetite.
As President of CIBC US Commercial Real Estate, Karen grew the line of business from scratch to a $25 billion book of loan commitments supported by 150 FTE’s across the country and generating $500+ million in annual revenue. Critical to success was creating and cultivating a risk culture that prioritized the interest of clients while balancing the bank’s risk posture and strategic direction, and satisfying multiple regulatory bodies. Karen was a regular presenter to the FDIC, the Federal Reserve and Canada’s OSFI, and to the bank’s US and global boards and their respective risk committees.
Karen’s experiences and instincts around how businesses can succeed in good times and bad are broad and go beyond commercial real estate. She has excelled at building relationships, trust and respect with clients, internal partners, competitors, regulators and community leaders, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences.
Along with her professional background, Karen’s extensive not-for-profit experience has equipped her for adding value in the corporate sector: understanding the need for good governance; the board’s role in providing strategy, direction and thought leadership; and the role of a board as a policy-making body vs. being operational. Her extensive leadership roles have included board chair of Girl Scouts of Chicago (now Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana), Breakthrough T1D Illinois (formerly JDRF Illinois Chapter) and Real Estate Finance Forum; member of Executive Committees, including Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF International), Community Investment Corp and TimeLine Theatre; and chair of Finance and Audit Committees of Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF International). She is a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow.
Karen has been widely recognized for her achievements in the real estate industry and in the community. She received the Urban Land Institute (Chicago) Lifetime Achievement Award, the Goldie Initiative Shero Award, the CREW Chicago Industry Achievement Award, Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana Luminary Award, and the Chicago Architecture Center Catalyst Award.
Karen holds a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis.