Karla Benson Rutten is the Regional Senior Vice President for the Midwest. She has over 20 years of experience in nonprofit organizations, higher education, and strategic organizational change.

Prior to coming to Per Scholas, Karla served as the Executive Director of Jeremiah Program (JP) in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she led a team that provided family coaching, leadership training, early childhood education, and affordable housing to JP participants pursuing their first college degree. Karla also served as the Vice President of Community Engagement at Girl Scouts River Valleys, where she created new and innovative pathways to Girl Scouting for girls of color. She also worked at Macalester College for 15 years as the director of the Lealtad-Suzuki Center and as the Title IX Coordinator/Director of Equity. An entrepreneur, Karla is the founder of Benson Rutten Innovations (BRI), a coaching, consulting, and training firm focused on DEI strategic leadership development. She holds a Master’s in Counseling and Personnel Services from the University of Maryland, College Park and a Bachelor’s in Psychology from Iowa State University.

In addition to her professional roles, Karla is also highly engaged in her community. She is an active member of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., an organization devoted to scholarship, service, social action, and sisterhood. Karla also serves as the Vice-Chair of the Board for Voices for Racial Justice, is the past president of the girls basketball booster club at her daughter’s high school, and for the past 12 years, she has served as a troop leader for her daughter’s Girl Scout troop. In all that she does, Karla’s ultimate goal is to motivate and inspire people to love who they are; believe in and value the beauty and power of their identities, humanities, and worth; and create the change they seek in themselves and their communities.