Karen Kennedy brings entrepreneurial vision to her position as vice president of sales at ValleyCrest Landscape Companies, a national landscape design firm with more than $1 billion in revenue. Working out of the company’s Calabasas, Calif., headquarters, Ms. Kennedy is responsible for building strategic relationships and supervising 14 sales managers.

Before being recruited in 2010 to lead ValleyCrest’s sales efforts, Ms. Kennedy served as executive vice president of sales for Hoovers, a Dun & Bradstreet company, where she oversaw 150 sales representatives delivering more than $120 million in annual revenue.

A tenacious change agent with more than 25 years of experience in the sales sector, Ms. Kennedy was employed with Hewlett-Packard for almost 13 years in increasingly senior positions including director of sales operations and senior director. She began her formal professional career in 1986 as the founder and partner of the information technology company Convergent Computing.

Ms. Kennedy has acquired a high degree of training. A current doctoral student, she holds a master’s degree in business administration from Pepperdine University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley. When she is not working, Ms. Kennedy volunteers her time with the Girl Scouts of America. She is also a supporting member of the Professional Businesswomen of California.