Over the past 37 years that I have worked in New York City for almost 37 years,  I’ve never met anyone who works as hard as Karen Lazarus.

She worked for my ad agency during the 90s. Then after I sold my business she and I both went to work at the Smile Train. And after that we both joined forces again and launched WonderWork.

At all three organizations, Karen was by far the most tireless, dedicated, hardest-working employee.

She is also one of the nicest. 

Karen does not have a mean bone in her body and everyone she meets loves her.  I can’t tell you how many donors and supporters have told me how nice and sweet she is.

Her third superpower is intelligence. Karen went to Vassar  which is one of the seven sister schools and comparable to the Ivy League.  Vassar is ranked as a 28 best college in the United States.

Karen is lucky to have the very rare combination of being nice and popular and very smart. This was the key to her success everywhere she worked.  She got stuff done without ruffling any feathers or any egos. And she had the brains to know what to do and how to do it.

Karen started out as an assistant to me at my advertising agency  and she did an incredible job but it wasn’t enough for her. So when we both moved to smile train, she quickly worked her way up to be a very effective senior manager.

 At Smile Train she single-handedly started our direct mail program.   She helped with human resources and administrative issues. She handled major donors and VIPs with incredible discretion and attention. She even took Photoshop lessons to help us manage our huge library of photos from our many trips around the world.

 I was always asking her to take on new assignments and challenges and she never once said no. And she never failed either.  That’s why I came to depend on her more than anyone else in organization.

 I’ve always felt very lucky that our paths crossed when I was running my ad agency and that she joined me for the journey to Smile Train and WonderWork.

 Neither one of those two charities would’ve succeeded without Karen Lazarus.