Karin Schnarr, Senior Associate

A passionate communications and public policy expert, Karin has worked with senior executives in government, the broader public sector, and private organizations and associations to develop and implement communications, advocacy and stakeholder outreach programs.

For almost a decade, Karin served in senior roles in national and provincial government ministries including serving as Chief of Staff to the Ministers of Health and Long-Term Care, Environment, Transportation, Attorney General and Minister responsible for Native Affairs. Karin was responsible for leading stakeholder outreach, ensuring consistent communications programs and leading public policy development on some of the government’s most contentious and publicly controversial files.

As a senior level consultant for the past 5 years, Karin brings a number of other strengths to the table in addition to her exceptional program management capabilities. She has extensive writing experience from ghostwriting articles for international journals and speech writing to the creation of communications plans and all of the accompanying materials. She has created client websites from conception through to site maintenance. Karin has also worked with national, provincial and local clients to create stakeholder outreach strategies and written communications materials including direct mail (for internal and external use), newsletters, brochures and email contact programs.

As part of public engagement strategies, she has led clients in priority setting exercises, conducted polling projects and created public feedback mechanisms including online surveys to solicit public input. Karin has led clients through sensitive crisis management situations and advised and trained them on how to deal with the media.

Karin’s successes for clients have resulted in the approval of capital expansion programs, policy and regulatory changes, reputation enhancement, creation of new linkages between organizations and stakeholder groups and international awards.

Karin is often a guest lecturer on government process at the Ivey School of Business at The University of Western Ontario.