Karen Dolmatch Petrou ’75 still remembers the exact words the Bank of America chief executive said to her in 1985. He “did not feel good about making a young woman a senior VP.” Karen was 32 at the time, and had risen quickly through the ranks at the bank. Instead of waiting around to see if he changed his mind, she quit and founded her own firm, Federal Financial Analytics.

今天，Karen是世界上的领先的银行监管和政策专家之一。American Bankeronce described her as “the sharpest mind analyzing banking policy today—maybe ever.”

For years, she was one of the few women—if not the only woman—in meetings with bankers. She was also typically the only blind person in the room. Karen was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa as a teen, which left her mostly blind by her 40s. Ike, her dog, is always by her side, and she has gathered her near-encyclopedic knowledge of banking rules by listening to audio readings of legislation and research.

Karen’s experiences helped her notice what others often missed.

“Going blind is a life-changing experience. It’s quite possibly one of the reasons I’m so focused on economic inequality,” she says. “When you have a disability, it reminds you that life isn’t that easy and things happen.”

In early 2016, Karen gave a speech to central bankers laying out how the Federal Reserve’s low interest rate policies after the Great Recession had exacerbated inequality by causing stocks to soar and savers to suffer. A few months later, the election results triggered a lot of soul-searching among policymakers about the nation’s economic divides.

在大流行期间，美联储再次成为自20世纪30年代以来最严重的经济衰退的抵御美国经济和金融体系的中心。虽然许多人称赞美联储作为大流行击中的迅速采取行动，但凯伦警告说，再一次，“较长的率保持超低，这不是经济繁殖 - 它的不平等。”

Her work has been widely cited by the media and Congress. While she is quick to acknowledge the Fed is not solely responsible for inequality, she urges swift change from the central bank. In early 2021, Karen published a book,不平等的引擎：美国的美联储和未来的财富，chronicling her deep concerns about what the central bank is doing. “The Fed has set the stage for another decade of weak growth, high-risk finance, low wages, negative savings, and lost hope,” she wrote.

在Wellesley，Karen在政治学中主修，并表示她被大学吸引了它的美丽，虽然她很快地了解了冬天可能是残酷的。她大学岁月最持久的回忆之一是她采取的滑雪课，以满足毕业的体育要求。当“湿透，泥泞，真的很冷”时，她回忆起一个“悲惨的”时间滑下船只。

在Wellesley，Karen在麻省理工学院采取了众多班级，她成为有线电视的早期专家。她前往加州大学伯克利，研究生院，很快就能了解技术和媒体的越来越痛苦。她的一个谈判引起了美国银行高管的眼睛，他将她作为“企业政治学家”的工作提供了一份工作。

By far her favorite role, she says, has been leading Federal Financial Analytics in Washington, D.C., with her late husband, Basil, who urged her to bring her laptop along on their beach vacations to write her book. She and her husband had “always been our own bosses and able to do what we want.”