Karen Wares is a Managing Director and Senior Relationship Manager at Bank of America, where she is responsible for several of the firm’s top clients across its Global Markets Business. Prior to joining Bank of America in 2021, Karen was Head of Broker Relationship and Prime Services Management at J.P. Morgan Asset Management where served as the Senior Relationship Manager for the organization’s largest broker relationships, and also ran its Prime Brokerage and Clearing Businesses, External Research Management team, and Global Trading Agreements Group.

Prior to joining J.P. Morgan Asset Management in 2014, Karen worked in the J.P. Morgan Investment Bank for 14 years where she held a variety of leadership positions. Most notably, she was part of the core team responsible for establishing J.P. Morgan’s global FX and Derivatives Prime Brokerage Business and played a crucial role in the build-out of the OTC Clearing platform post the financial crisis. She also spent three years serving as Assistant General Counsel for the Investment Bank and running the F&O and OTC Clearing legal negotiation team.

Karen earned her Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School and has a BA in Political Science from The Pennsylvania State University, with minor concentrations in Business and Spanish. Throughout her career, Karen has been heavily involved with diversity initiatives and has held leadership roles in a number of organizations focused on advancing women professionally, including co-chairing the women’s network at J.P. Morgan which had over 3000 members.