Karen Johnson specializes in hotel management contract issues, master-planned resort development, hospitality brand development, litigation support, due diligence underwriting and valuations of complex assets.

Karen previously headed up Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels’ Advisory practice in the Americas where she supervised a wide variety of assignments ranging from for-sale residential product recommendations at various proposed or expanding resorts in the US, Mexico, and the Caribbean, to brand equity consulting. Her team’s conclusions were instrumental in MGM Mirage’s decision to enter the third-party hotel management business.

Karen has run numerous competitions to select operators and/or brands for clients’ hotels, determined contract norms for benchmarking purposes and negotiated or consulted on numerous hotel management contracts. Karen authored the chapter on hotel management contracts for the ULI Hotel Development Handbook, an article on management contracts for the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, and the section on contract terms in the Americas for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels’ FocusOn Management Contracts.

After graduating from Michigan State University’s School of Hotel, Restaurant & Institutional Management with honors, Karen was employed as an incentive trip coordinator at E. F. MacDonald and later in various management positions with Hyatt. Her consulting career began at Pannell Kerr Forster in 1981 and led over the years to the feasibility group at Marriott International, Gloodt Associates, PKF Consulting, and Landauer Associates.

She has conducted numerous highest and best use studies for dozens of sites intended for resort community development to determine the optimal mix of hotel, residential, timeshare, and recreational amenities. A Member of the Appraisal Institute (MAI) since 1996, Karen has valued hotels as small as a 12-cottage sport fishing resort in the Bahamas and as large as the Venetian and Palazzo resorts in Las Vegas.

Karen, a member of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC), has provided expert witness support for cases being litigated or arbitrated in California, Illinois, Nevada, Texas, and London.