Karen Layng is the CEO of M.A.I.T. Co. The company serves as a strategic partner in the construction, manufacturing, energy, and engineering industries. Her thirty-five years of legal expertise in these industries includes as a Shareholder and Board Member of the international law firm, Vedder Price and Chair of its litigation and construction practice areas, and as Chief Strategy Officer, General Counsel, and Secretary to the Boards of a national mechanical firm. She is a licensed arbitrator on the AAA mega construction, commercial, energy and joint venture and M&A panels and is a member of the AAA Board of Directors. She is also a member of the Industry Advisory Board and an Adjunct Professor in the Northwestern University Engineering Master of Science in Executive Management in the Design Construction program. She was also the first woman president of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association.

Karen is the immediate past National President of the Girl Scouts of the USA serving as a Board member from 2017 to 2023. For the last three years, as Chair of the Board, she oversaw the 30-member National Board managing the organization’s governance, legal and fiduciary responsibilities. Among her many awards and honors, she recently received the University of Illinois-College of Economics Social Impact Alumni Award, was named to Crain's 2022 Notable Nonprofit Board Leaders list and received the University of Illinois' alumni achievement 2023 Comeback Alumni Award.