Karen Maes is a dynamic and innovative professional who began her career at Toyota Motor Europe in 2013. Initially starting as an administrative staff member in the planning department, Karen quickly transferred to the warranty department within the quality division, where she was involved in cost-share discussions between suppliers and Toyota. Faced with the complexity and manual nature of these processes, Karen soon focused on potential IT solutions to standardize processes and quickly became the SharePoint expert and IT Champion within her team.

Later, she moved to the Business Innovation & Planning department, where, inspired by citizen development, she led a successful project with the aid of PowerApp and PowerAutomate, significantly boosting customer and employee satisfaction. Karen’s approach to streamlining processes by first meticulously outlining them, identifying what was crucial and what was obsolete, and then standardizing them, led to significant improvements within her organization. Her ability to define user requirements and process flows and implement these in PowerApps and PowerAutomate established her reputation as a highly successful innovator at Toyota.