Karen L. Murrell is the founder and president of Higher Heights Consulting and Training, a privately held firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland, that works with the financial services industry to develop programs and products to improve the financial well-being of lower-income consumers. Ms. Murrell has developed innovative alliances between financial institutions, Fortune 500 companies, nonprofit organizations, faith-based institutions, and government agencies to help low-income consumers build assets. She has held leadership positions at Fannie Mae and the Fannie Mae Foundation, where she launched initiatives to increase homeownership. She was instrumental in implementing a national public education advertising campaign to increase homeownership that provided information to more than a million consumers a year in nine languages. She has also developed several financial education publications for corporate clients and financial publications in multiple languages. Ms. Murrell is the co-author of You and Your Money: A No-Stress Guide to Becoming Financially Fit (Financial Times Press, 2007), which examines the impact of societal change on personal finances and identifies the character traits of financially savvy people.

As a Senior Research Fellow in the Asset Building Program of the New America Foundation, Ms. Murrell is exploring and advancing policy innovations in financial services and asset-building fields. Ms. Murrell will also play a key leadership role in shaping the program’s policy work to promote effective financial education.