Meet: Lori Karas - The Alignment Gap™
Hi everyone, I'm Lori Karas, Founder and CEO of Karas Executive Services, LLC, an executive advisory firm working with CEOs, boards, and leadership teams to strengthen the connection between strategy, organizational alignment, and results.
I bring more than 25 years of executive leadership experience across the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, including healthcare, financial services, higher education, and government. My work focuses on executive judgment, governance, organizational alignment, and helping organizations translate strategic intent into meaningful results.
I'm also the creator of The Alignment Gap™, a proprietary body of executive thinking that examines why organizations can have a clear strategy and still struggle to achieve the outcomes they intend.
Outside of my business, I've been actively involved in Rotary International, serving as District Governor for 2023–24 and continuing to support leadership development and mentoring.
I'm happy to be part of JSuite and look forward to sharing perspectives, and learning more about the businesses and people represented here.
Hannah, I think one of the biggest challenges is understanding the connection between the financials and what it actually takes to deliver the mission.
It's not enough to know what a program costs or whether the organization achieved its goals. Boards need to understand how financial resources, organizational capacity, and strategic priorities work together to support the mission. That includes program costs, staffing, volunteers, training, technology, infrastructure, and the resources needed to sustain the work.
An organization may meet its program targets, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has the capacity or financial structure to sustain those results. And boards have responsibilities beyond reviewing financial performance. They must exercise judgment around mission, financial stewardship, risk, fundraising, and long-term sustainability.
I think the more important question for boards to ask is: What has to be true for our financial resources, organizational capacity, and strategic priorities to be aligned with the mission?
That's when financial reporting becomes a tool for governance and decision-making, rather than simply a measure of what has already happened.
