Karen Shakira Kali, AICP
Policy Advisor
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Consumer rights and protection, racial wealth equity, banking and financial services, community reinvestment, and health and wealth.
ABOUT
Karen Shakira Kali is a policy advisor at the AARP Public Policy Institute, where she focuses on consumer financial security, community reinvestment, banking and fintech, and racial wealth equity.
Before joining AARP, Kali served as senior program manager with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. She has extensive experience providing technical assistance and policy analysis to community-based organizations, counties, municipalities and federal agencies.
Kali has written and presented extensively about basic banking, modernization of the Community Reinvestment Act, health and wealth equity, financial security, mortgages and disparities in economic security. Kali served as commissioner for the Montgomery County, Maryland Commission on Common Ownership Communities, within the Office of Consumer Protection from 2008-2012. In addition, Kali is a certified urban planner with the American Institute of Certified Planners and a member of the American Planning Association.
Kali holds a master’s degree in community and regional planning from Iowa State University and a bachelor’s degree in sociology, with a concentration in urban sociology, from Stetson University.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Read Karen Shakira Kali's blog posts.
CONTACT
For media inquiries, call 202-434-2560 or e-mail media@aarp.org.