Making the Built Environment a Better Place
Karen Layng helped lay the new strategic foundation for the EMDC program. Today, she serves on its Industry Advisory Board and as an instructor educating future leaders in the built environment sector.
Karen Layng knows Northwestern Engineering’s Master of Science in Executive Management for Design and Construction (EMDC) program like few others.
After all, she helped rebrand it back in 2019.
Layng said she has been thrilled to be a part of the EMDC program’s continued development, providing such a unique educational opportunity for experienced professionals in the built environment sector looking to move into executive leadership.
“A general MBA program does not provide the arrows you need in your quiver to lead in construction, engineering, energy, and the like,” she said. “This program is geared toward the built environment and real application. Your networking is also among other students who have vast experience in the industry.”
Layng helps facilitate the learning and networking. The classes she leads lean into her experience, which includes more than three decades in Big Law in the built environment industry.
One of Layng’s main goals is to prevent EMDC students from needing her litigation services during their professional careers.
“All my EMDC classes are geared to instruct the students how to keep their companies, boards of directors, shareholders, and all the other stakeholders out of disputes generally and court more specifically,” she said. “That can be through education in ethics, crisis management, due diligence and alternative dispute resolution, whatever it takes to avoid the lengthy mistakes that are often made because leaders are not experienced in enterprise risk management.”
While Layng has tremendous respect for juries and judges, she said they often are not in the best position to efficiently and effectively resolve disputes that involve the highly technical topics in the built environment industry.
Because of that, Layng emphasizes alternative dispute resolution and is the Vice President of the Board of the American Arbitration Association and sits on Dispute Resolution Boards.
“In dispute resolution, the people who are trying to add shareholder value are the ones making the decisions,” she said. “It’s very rewarding to assist where the focus is on helping parties settle disputes in a creative, innovative, and strategic way so all can continue to do what they do best.”
Layng brings more than her deep professional experience to the EMDC classroom and the IAB.
She also brings a clear sense of purpose that goes back to her youth and her time as a Girl Scout.
That experience was pivotal to her growth and development, and she remained involved with the organization as an adult. She spent three years as national president for the board of directors of Girl Scouts of the USA after spending three years on the national board. Before that, she was Chair of the Board of the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana Council.
“I believe that making the world a better place is all of our responsibilities,” she said. “I feel that I am positioned to give back and have a servant leadership responsibility to do so.”
That purpose leads Layng to pour herself into her work as an EMDC instructor.
“There are a lot of very capable people in mid-level management who, through an opportunity like EMDC, will make it to the C-suite,” she said. “I love giving back, and I love teaching. This program and its students are so important to me.”
