Tom Karl – Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Tom Karl founded R1 as the result of his professional experience in Learning & Development and his own personal experiences in addiction and recovery. The idea for the R1 Learning System and the Discovery Cards came to Tom following a relapse when he noted a lack of practical tools in addiction treatment and recovery settings. He has used the creation of the tools to help him better understand himself and address his own personal challenges. Through R1, Tom’s goal is to put impactful self-discovery tools into the hands of individuals in recovery and empower them to change their lives. Tom has 25+ years of experience in learning and development, and employee engagement, working with global companies, government agencies, and education institutions. Tom is active in the recovery community and volunteers with patient engagement programs.

Tom is a graduate of Duke University with a bachelor of science degree in economics. Tom currently volunteers on the Patient & Family Engagement Advisory Council at Inova Healthcare System in Virginia. He is active in the recovery community, is a founding member of RecoveryDC, and volunteers with patient engagement programs.

Prior to R1, Tom was the Senior Vice President at Lee Hecht Harrison and a Partner with MasteryWorks. At Lee Hecht Harrison, Tom was the Global Practice Lead for Employee Engagement and Career Development Solutions where he led the go-to-market strategy and product development for all practice solutions. In his role, Tom consulted with clients to design, develop, and implement products and solutions to address their pressing human capital needs. As a partner at MasteryWorks, Tom led the product strategy to create the first multi-language career portal solution in the industry (including assessment tools, e-learning, career discussion planners, articles, and links to existing organization HR technologies and career resources). MasteryWorks' career portals were licensed and deployed globally. Tom, with his partner and team, built an international reputation for career planning and was acquired by Lee Hecht Harrison in 2014 after a two-decade strategic partnership.