Karen Jacobsen

Born in Mackay, Australia and writing songs from the age of seven, Jacobsen was inspired to be a professional singer by her idol Olivia Newton-John. After graduating from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University majoring in voice and piano and winning the Jazz Prize.

Singing with the Queensland Youth Choir and being awarded the Warana Young Performer of the Year, she moved to Sydney making her musical theatre debut in the original Australian cast of Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story. She performed regularly on Australian television including Good Morning Australia and I Do I Do and her speaking and singing voices have been used on thousands of commercials for television, radio and online.

On July 4th 2000, she relocated to New York City, writing and recording songs, and releasing nine CDs on her independent label Kurly Queen.

Her songs have been on soundtracks for Dawson's Creek and the NBC show Passions and she has shared the stage with Christopher Cross, Neil Sedaka, Norah Jones, Cyndi Lauper, Spyro Gyra, Deborah Cox and Rachael Sage. She has written or recorded with Grammy Award winner Andy Zulla, Tony Award winner David Zippel, ARIA Award winner Sean O'Boyle and Emmy Award nominee Amy Powers.

In 2002, Jacobsen's speaking voice was chosen as one of the Australian English options for the text-to-speech system used in GPS units for Garmin, Navman, TomTom and Mio and in telephone and computer software systems. Karen has been dubbed by ABC News and CBS News as 'The Dashboard Diva' and by the Gold Coast Bulletin as 'Gadget Girl'.

She created the empowerment brand 'The GPS Girl' and in speaking engagements and performances shares the five directions for Recalculating, how to 'Recalculate' in Business and Life and 'The GPS Girl's Top Ten Directions for Life' and filmed the pilot of television show, 'Travel the World with The GPS Girl'.

She performs the Australian voice of Siri.

Karen was President of the New York Chapter of the National Speakers Association (2015) and performed on the main stage of the national conference singing The Star Spangled Banner and for the NSA Youth Convention in San Diego (2014).

She has appeared as Keynote Speaker and Concert Performer at the Global Speakers Summit in Vancouver in 2013, the World Meetings Forum in Cancun (2014), the World Contact Forum in Mexico City (2014), the Australian Asphalt Pavement Association conference (2015) Gold Coast, Australian National Association of Teachers of Singing conference (2015) Tasmania and at TEDxTraverseCity.

She has performed her one woman show at the piano at Off-Broadway theaters Stage 72 at The Triad, The Laurie Beechman Theatre and Joe's Pub at The Public Theater, The Duplex and The Bitter End.

Karen has published two books, Recalculate - Directions for Driving Performance Success (2015) and The GPS Girl's Road Map for Your Future (2011).