Mama Bear

At UW–Madison, Murphy “learned to work together in groups instead of always trying to outshine someone else.” Courtesy of Jacob Funk

Growing up in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, in a family of rabid sports fans, Karen Murphy ’93 cheered for the Badgers and Packers.

Today, she still cheers for the Badgers. The Packers? Not since 1999, when Murphy was hired as a controller by the Chicago Bears.

“It was an interesting transition,” she says. In October 2000, Murphy followed the Bears to a game at Lambeau Field.

“I realized I was truly cheering for the Bears,” she says, chuckling. “I knew I had fully converted.”

In the ensuing 25 years, Murphy has become one of the Bears’ top executives, currently serving as executive vice president of stadium development and chief operating officer.

When she attended UW–Madison, Murphy’s dad, an accountant, suggested she should consider the field.

“I took a couple of classes, and they went really well,” she says. “Everyone else hated them. I thought, ‘This is probably what I should do.’ ”

Murphy liked the “work hard, play hard” vibe on campus, and she found the UW to be “a very collaborative school. I learned to work together in groups instead of always trying to outshine someone else.”

After a stint with Ernst and Young in Chicago, in 1997 she went to work for the Walt Disney Company, which had recently acquired the Anaheim Angels baseball team. Murphy worked on the Angels account, sitting in an office, as it happened, adjacent to another UW grad, Rick Schlesinger ’83.

“He’s now the president of the Milwaukee Brewers,” she says. “I remember talking to him about Madison and getting a real understanding of what it meant to work for a sports team.”

Murphy realized she wanted to work for an athletic franchise full-time, so she sent résumés to 70 teams. The Bears had an opening, and she had friends there from her earlier time in the city. It was a good fit.

Murphy then worked her way up the ladder, often finding herself the only female in the room at meetings.

“I was the only woman in leadership until around 2016,” she says, noting she had to create a maternity leave policy. “But I relished that.” She knew sports, and at the same time, she was able to offer a different perspective.

Murphy began her current role in 2024. Getting a new Bears stadium built — most likely in suburban Arlington Heights — is a daunting challenge, but she relishes that, too.

Meanwhile, Murphy has a son enrolling at UW–Madison this fall. Luckily, she can still cheer for the Badgers.

Published in the Fall 2025 issue