Karen Bussone

Karen Bussone accepted the Professor of Practice position at Lawrence University and started her new role of working with many fantastic professors across various disciplines to launch the Business and Entrepreneurship major in September 2023. The new major has quickly become one of the most popular disciplines of study as it has the second largest enrollment across campus as of September 2026. 

Professor Karen Bussone's formative years were spent on family farms located in west-central Illinois. Within her father’s family, there were two generations of college educated farmers and teachers. Bussone and her four siblings became the third generation to obtain college degrees as they were heavily influenced by their father, a University of Illinois graduate.

After college, Bussone’s professional experience encompassed serving over two decades in senior leadership roles within food industry corporations. Thereafter, Bussone embarked upon a new career passion as she has spent over two decades teaching in higher education.

Bussone has significant knowledge and experience in business and entrepreneurship as she led teams within marketing, strategic leadership, operations, and distribution with Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods, and Dot Foods. With Kellogg’s, Bussone led many successful new product launches in various Kellogg’s manufacturing facilities across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. During her years with Kraft Foods, Bussone led the Parkay business divestiture project, which involved five Kraft Foods manufacturing facilities. She also held various leadership roles in strategic leadership and operations. While with Dot Foods, Bussone led significant change to company key initiatives in customer service and workplace safety. 

Bussone has greatly enjoyed teaching and mentoring students in higher education at Lawrence University, Illinois Wesleyan University, and Western Illinois University. Across her twenty-one years of teaching thus far, she has developed team-based collaborative classrooms and has designed semester-long and term-long experiential learning projects across the respective business and entrepreneurial curriculums taught including marketing, supply chain, customer service, management and leadership, sport management, sport marketing, entrepreneurship, new product development, human resource management, financial management, and risk management.

While teaching at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bussone was asked by the university’s president and provost to launch and lead the Small Business Development Center of McLean County at Illinois Wesleyan University. During Bussone’s six years of leadership, the entrepreneurship center grew to over 1400 small business and entrepreneurial clients consulted; generated $45 million in economic impact for McLean County; provided experiential learning projects, with SBDC small businesses, for 450 Illinois Wesleyan University and Illinois State University students; and hosted over 125 small business educational seminars/webinars and workshops. 

Bussone holds a B.S. in Food Science and a M.B.A. She studied at Drake University and Western Illinois University and was also a member of the Women’s Track and Field teams. Karen and her husband, Al, live in Neenah, Wisconsin. They have one son, Peter, who has studied and played football at Illinois State University and is currently pursuing a career in Strength and Conditioning.