Freada’s work is at the intersection of racial/social justice and tech. As a Partner at Kapor Capital (www.kaporcapital.com), Freada Kapor Klein, Ph.D. invests in women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color whose tech start-ups aspire to generate economic value and positive social impact. Kapor Capitals investment sectors include, but are not limited to, education, health, and consumer finance.
Freada is the founder and Board Chair of the Level Playing Field Institute (www.lpfi.org), which promotes innovative approaches to fairness in higher education and workplaces. The Institute’s Summer Math and Science Honors Academy (SMASH), a three-summer high school program serving under-represented students of color, is in the process of scaling nationally. The Academy works to ensure racial equity within the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
The Institute’s workplace programs have conducted landmark research, including the 2011 study The Tilted Playing Field: Hidden Bias in IT Workplaces. Freada’s book Giving Notice: Why the Best and the Brightest Leave the Workplace and How You Can Help Them Stay (Jossey-Bass 2007) combines quantitative research on who leaves corporate America and why, with stories of day-to-day experiences detailing the human and financial cost.
Freada co-founded the first organization in the U.S. to address sexual harassment in 1976. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Research, and has conducted many large survey projects on perceptions and experiences of bias, harassment, and disrespectful treatment in workplaces.
Her first job in tech was as the first head of Employee Relations, Organizational Development, and Management Training at Lotus Development Corporation. Her job description was to make Lotus the most progressive employer in the U.S. Lotus 1-2-3 is widely recognized as the killer app that made the personal computer ubiquitous in business.
A frequent speaker (some of her 2014 engagements include presentations at: Asana, Generation Investment Management Womens Leadership Summit, RAND Corp., Twilio, Twitter, and Women 2.0), Freada is also quoted and written about in the media (examples from 2014 include: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, National Public Radio, Huffington Post, Bloomberg, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Jose Mercury News).
Freada is also a Co-Chair of the Kapor Center for Social Impact (www.kaporcenter.org) and an Advisory Trustee of the U.C. Berkeley Foundation.