Dr. Karla Peterson, is currently Chair of Business Administration and Director of Entrepreneurship in the School of Business at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. Dr. Peterson’s areas of expertise include culture development, human resource planning and motivating, strategic planning, and entrepreneurship. Dr. Peterson’s work experience includes over twenty-five years of teaching, banking, institutional research, and strategic planning. Her consulting experience is in the areas of leadership development, employee relations, strategic planning and corporate coaching. Dr. Peterson graduated from Moorhead State University with a BS in Accounting, Central Michigan University with an MS in Business Administration, and a Ph.D. from Capella University in Organization and Management with a specialization in Leadership.
Dr. Peterson achieved Summa Cum Laude status at both her master’s coursework and her doctoral coursework. Dr. Peterson’s dissertation explored the relational benefits provided by angel investors to their funded entrepreneurs. A paper based on her doctoral research was accepted and presented at the highly prestigious Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference in Madrid, Spain. Dr. Peterson is currently completing an additional graduate degree, a master’s in accounting. Dr. Peterson is a Fellow of Babson College; she has also attended University of Oklahoma, University of Wisconsin, and completed numerous courses and workshops throughout her professional career.
Dr. Peterson is fun, funny, focused, and future paced toward achieving high quality results. She has the unique ability to listen, observe, and then ask questions that are provocative, probing and penetrating. She avoids giving a billion answers, because answers change. Instead she harvests “forever questions” because questions are the diamonds we hold to the light. Dr. Peterson understands that a question steers us into our own answer. She also understands and practices “shared leadership” and is a model Team Player. Best of all, Dr. Peterson is creative, compassionate, and outrageously devoted to excellence, animals, the environment, and family.
