Karen Blanks Ellis

Karen Blanks Ellis, Managing Director – Strategic Environmental Management & Sustainability at FedEx Express, has provided strategic leadership to integrate environmental risk management into business planning and decision execution. She transformed regulatory compliance for approx. 1000 North American locations and provides technical consulting for global environmental sustainability with successes including ISO 14001 certification of all U.S. FedEx airport locations, an emissions calculator for FedEx customers and advanced engineering solutions for aircraft deicing impact mitigation.

Karen is currently serving on the Board of the International Aviation Womens Association and co-chair the FedEx Air Operations Sustainability Impact Team. She is the former multi-year Chair of the Airlines For America Environment and the Environmental Sustainability Councils, served long-term appointments from the City of Memphis Mayor to the Shelby County Solid Waste Regional Planning Board and Shelby County Ground Water Quality Control Board and formerly served on the TN Chamber of Commerce Environment Committee. Karen is one of the founders of the FedEx My Sisters Keeper (MSK) mentoring program, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and a recipient of the Women of Excellence award from the Tri-State Defender.

Karen has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Christian Brothers University.