Born and trained in Ireland, Karen has worked in various five star hotels and fine dining restaurants and comes with strong culinary industry experience. Karen worked her way up the ranks to Head Chef and restaurant owner. Amongst her many accolades, Karen is a gold medal winner and overall winner of the Restaurant of Champions, Salon Culinaire. Karen has managed and mentored many Chefs and Teams for both National and International competitions and convenes the Australian Culinary Challenge in Sydney and many other competitions.

Karen is now heading up the culinary program at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu, Sydney Culinary Arts Institute and TAFE NSW for the past 9 year as Head Chef and presently Program Manager. Kasren is also the National President of the Australian Culinary Federation (ACF). 

Karen believes in fostering education and training in young apprentices, culinary students and chefs through both formal education regional, national and international competitions which she is frequently a judge.