Karen Spencer, Countess Spencer

Karen Spencer, Countess Spencer (née Villeneuve; born 1972) is a Canadian social entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of Whole Child International, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that works to improve the quality of care for vulnerable children.

Lady Spencer was born Karen Villeneuve on 30th November 1972 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the eldest of three children. Her father’s job as a National Parks administrator took the family to 23 homes and 10 schools during her childhood; Spencer has credited this experience as the foundation for her interest in helping children without a stable home.

Spencer was motivated to launch the nonprofit organization Whole Child International, which targets the largely overlooked emotional needs of society’s most at-risk children, after attending a 2004 parenting class that introduced the dynamic child-rearing approach of Emmi Pikler. In the years that followed, she and her team developed a cost-effective, sustainable, and scalable program, with a particular emphasis on relationship-based childcare, to provide the tools vulnerable children need to become productive members of society.

Whole Child is currently implementing programs with funding from USAID, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Korean Poverty Reduction Fund, and other significant donors such as David G. Booth, the Annenberg Foundation, and the Pamella and Daniel DeVos Foundation.

In February 2010,the 14th Dalai Lama came to lend his personal support to Whole Child at the launch of its global initiative to raise awareness of the plight of institutionalized children.

Karen Spencer is co-author of articles published in the peer-reviewed Infant Journal of Mental Health and Perspectives in Infant Mental Health, contributing important insights and realistic solutions to the public debate. In September 2015, she was elected an Ashoka Fellowfor her innovative work as a social entrepreneur by the Ashoka Foundation, which honored her for identifying and filling a gap in care for orphans and vulnerable children. In 2016 she was made a Fellow at the University of Northampton in the United Kingdom. In 2017, she received the Pikler/Lóczy USA Founders Award, and People Magazine named her one of "25 Women Changing the World."

She reportedly divides her time between her home in Pacific Palisades, California, and her husband's family seat at Althorp in Northamptonshire, United Kingdom.

In 1997, she married Mark Gordon, a Hollywood producer whose films include Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot. The couple divorced in 2003. Together they have two daughters, Emma (b. 1998) and Kate (b. 2001).

In June 2011, she married Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer at Althorp. The Earl Spencer is the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, and an author and broadcaster. As a result of her marriage, Karen Spencer is formally styled The Right Honourable The Countess Spencer, and is addressed as Lady Spencer.

The Earl and Countess Spencer have one child together: Lady Charlotte Diana Spencer, born 30 July 2012 at Althorp.