HR Grapevine 2015 Speakers - Karen Bowes, VP International HR, Capital One

Karen Bowes, VP International HR, Capital One, will be speaking at this year’s HR Can Change the World conference. She talks to HR Grapevine about her motivations and inspirations…

What have been the highlights in your career journey that have enabled you to sit where you are today?

I came into HR from a legal background working for Capital One as its in-house employment lawyer. I loved the company culture and was its sole Employment Counsel supporting the team through all sorts of changes. But there came a time where I did a lot of soul-searching and asked myself: What do I like? What am I really interested in? Which is fundamentally people, and the fact that people can, whoever they are, achieve extraordinary things. This coincided with the Head of HR moving on, so I took on the HRD role and switched over and it’s just been brilliant, I haven’t looked back.