Freada Kapor Klein

Last updated
Freada Kapor Klein
Freada Kapor Klein 2011.jpg
Klein in 2011
Born
Freada Klein

(1952-08-26) August 26, 1952 (age 72)
Kansas City, Missouri, US
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley
Brandeis University (PhD)
Known for Organizational development and human resources
Spouse Mitch Kapor
Children2 stepchildren

Freada Kapor Klein (born August 26, 1952) is an American venture capitalist, social policy researcher and philanthropist. As a partner at Kapor Capital and the Kapor Center for Social Impact, she is known for efforts to diversify the technology workforce through activism and investments. Her 2007 book Giving Notice: Why the Best and the Brightest Leave the Workplace and How You Can Help Them Stay examines the reasons people have for leaving corporate America as well as the human and financial cost.

Contents

Klein first became a victims advocate in the 1970s. During this time, she noticed a widespread denial of the prevalence of sexual harassment and compared it to the silence surrounding rape that she had seen six years earlier. [1] Kapor Klein's association with technology companies began when she started working for Lotus Software in 1984. In 2015, Benjamin Jealous called her "the moral center of Silicon Valley and an O.G. in technology". [2]

Early life and education

Klein was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1952 and grew up in the San Fernando Valley with two older siblings. Her father was a chemical engineer attending medical school. Her mother was one of the few survivors of a Jewish family who fled Russia to escape pogroms. When applying to universities, Klein looked for places where there were high levels of student activism. [3] Studying at the University of California, Berkeley, she volunteered at a rape crisis center and later interviewed rapists who were in prison. [4] She graduated from Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in criminology in 1974 and founded the Alliance Against Sexual Coercion in 1976. This is considered to be the first organization in the United States to focus on preventing sexual harassment in the workplace. [5] In 1984, Klein received a Ph.D. in social policy and research from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts with a Social Science Research Council fellowship for the study of sexual harassment in federal government employment. [6] [7]

Career

After receiving her first degree, Klein was a writer for the newsletter for the women's organization Feminist Alliance Against Rape. [8] Kapor Klein joined Lotus Development Corporation in 1984, when Lotus 1-2-3 was widely recognized as the killer app which made computers ubiquitous in business. Her position was Head of Employee Relations, Organizational Development and Management Training. A stated vision for the company was to be "the most progressive employer in the United States". [3] In 1987, Kapor Klein founded the consulting firm Klein Associates to provide training on issues of fairness and bias reduction in work environments. [9]

Kapor Klein became a partner at Kapor Capital, which was founded in 1999. The fund, which has made a pledge to only invest in companies that prioritize diversity, focuses on products that "close gaps of access and opportunity". An example she gave was the mobile app Pigeonly which aims to bypass the high cost of phone calls in and out of the prison system. Her investment sectors include education, health, and consumer finance. [10] Kapor Capital has been absorbed into the broader organization known as the Kapor Center for Social Impact. Another project under this umbrella is the Level Playing Field Institute, founded by Kapor Klein in 2001. Aiming to foster interest in STEM fields among underrepresented groups, the LPFI promotes computer science participation through hackathons and workshops. [11] Some studies produced by the institute include The Tilted Playing Field and The Corporate Leaders Survey. [12] [13] The institute is also known for its Summer Math and Science Honors Academy (SMASH) three-summer high school program. SMASH has been described as "100 percent students of color" and has led most of them to pursue a degree in a quantitative science. [14]

Kapor Klein's for-profit and non-profit organizations, which are run from the same office, regularly contribute studies on racial and gender disparity. They have explored factors ranging from direct discrimination to attrition in the STEM pipeline. [15] [16] Two notable studies are an assessment of inclusion efforts at Fortune 500 manufacturing firms and a survey of bias experienced by Massachusetts physicians and medical students. Described as "in regular touch with the White House", Kapor Klein has advised the World Bank and the United Nations. [3] [17] She also gave input on the Civil Rights Act of 1991. [18]

In 2016, Kapor Klein, along with Erica Baker, bethanye Blount, Tracy Chou, Laura Gomez, Y-Vonne Hutchinson, Ellen Pao, and Susan Wu founded the non-profit organization Project Include to develop customized human resources advice in consultation with startup executives. Several companies employing 25-1,000 people signed on for the program following its launch in May. Although they were initially kept anonymous, the names of the clients were announced a month later. [19] [20]

Freada Kapor Klein is an advisor to Crossculture VC and sits on the board of the Berkeley Foundation. [21] [10] While serving on Berkeley's College of Letters and Science board in 2000, Kapor Klein founded the IDEAL Scholars Fund with three other board members and alumni. Designed as a response to California Proposition 209, the scholarship invests in high-caliber, underrepresented students and provides access to staff in mentor roles.

In the midst of Uber's 2017 sexual harassment scandal, Kapor-Klein wrote in an open letter that as an investor in the company, she was disappointed with its under-commitment to inclusion. She criticized technology companies for making reporting difficult and said it was unfortunate that "Medium and Twitter have become tech's complaints channels." [22]

Personal life

Freada Klein met Mitch Kapor during her time at Lotus. In the 1990s, they began a relationship and eventually married. Although never calling for an outright ban, Kapor Klein is largely opposed to office romances and believes that harassment can often result when they are executed poorly. [4] On their decision to wait, she stated "he was smart enough as the CEO to not hit on the person who co-founded the first group on sexual harassment in the U.S. He's very bright." [16]

Kapor and Kapor Klein moved to the Bay Area in 1999 and lived in Oakland, California, with her stepson Adam and stepdaughter Molly. [16] [23] The couple attempted to build a large home in Berkeley, California, described as "akin to an office building" by environmental groups. They managed to obtain approval but nevertheless put the lot up for sale in 2016. [24] [25]

Kapor Klein was on the Board of Trustees of the Summer Science Program from 2004 to 2006. Her husband, also a board member, had been a student of the program in 1966. She has challenged millennials working on diversity to inform themselves about the movement's history and learn "how recent and how complicated the whole issue of stereotyping and limiting opportunity" is. [3]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mitch Kapor</span> American entrepreneur (born 1950)

Mitchell David Kapor is an American entrepreneur best known for his work as an application developer in the early days of the personal computer software industry, later founding Lotus, where he was instrumental in developing the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet. He left Lotus in 1986. In 1990 with John Perry Barlow and John Gilmore, he co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and served as its chairman until 1994. In 2003, he became the founding chair of the Mozilla Foundation, creator of the open source web browser Firefox. Kapor has been an investor in the personal computing industry, and supporter of social causes via Kapor Capital and the Kapor Center. He serves on the board of SMASH, a non-profit founded by his wife, Freada Kapor Klein, to help underrepresented scholars hone their STEM knowledge while building personal networks and skills for careers in tech and the sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual harassment</span> Unwanted sexual attention or advances

Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment can be physical and/or a demand or request for sexual favors, making sexually colored remarks, showing pornography, and any other unwelcome physical, verbal, or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions from verbal transgressions to sexual abuse or assault. Harassment can occur in many different social settings such as the workplace, the home, school, or religious institutions. Harassers or victims can be of any gender.

Lynne C. Hermle is an attorney specializing in employment law. She is a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP's Menlo Park, California, office. She also serves on the firm's management committee, the "first partner from the firm's Silicon Valley office to serve, and the second woman ever chosen".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas Dirks</span> American indologist, historian and former university administrator

Nicholas B. Dirks is an American academic and a former Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. Dirks is the author of numerous books on South Asian history and culture, primarily concerned with the impact of British colonial rule. In June 2020, Dirks was named president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Equal Rights Advocates (ERA) is an American non-profit gender justice/women's rights organization that was founded in 1974. ERA is a legal and advocacy organization for advancing rights and opportunities for women, girls, and people of marginalized gender identities through legal cases and policy advocacy.

Singularity Education Group is an American company that offers executive educational programs, a business incubator, and business consultancy services. Although the company uses the word "university" in its branding, it is not an accredited university and has no academic programs or accreditation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Pao</span> American businesswoman (born 1970)

Ellen Kangru Pao is an American investor and former interim CEO of social media company Reddit.

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) is a donor-advised community foundation serving the Silicon Valley region. It is the largest charitable foundation in Silicon Valley.

Sexism in the technology industry is overt, subtle, or covert occupational sexism which makes the technology industry less friendly, less accessible, and less profitable for women. While the participation of women in the tech industry varies by region, it is generally around 4% to 20% depending on the measure used. Possible causes that have been studied by researchers include gender stereotypes, investment influenced by those beliefs, a male-dominated environment, a lack of awareness about sexual harassment, and the culture of the industry itself. Margaret O'Mara, a professor of history at the University of Washington, in 2019 concluded that Silicon Valley is uniquely influential locale that is shaping our world. But she points to problematic failures regarding diversity. Male oligopolies of high-tech power have recreated traditional environments that repress the talents and ambitions of women, people of color, and other minorities to the benefit of whites and Asian males.

Ellen Pao v. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC and DOES 1-20 is a lawsuit filed in 2012 in San Francisco County Superior Court under the law of California by executive Ellen Pao for gender discrimination against her employer, the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Overlapping with a number of studies condemning the representation of women in venture capital, the case was followed closely by reporters, advocacy groups and Silicon Valley executives. Given the tendency for similar cases to reach settlements out of court, coverage of Pao v. Kleiner Perkins described it as a landmark trial once it began in February 2015. On March 27, 2015 the jury found in favor of Kleiner Perkins on all counts.

Women in venture capital or VC are investors who provide venture capital funding to startups. Women make up a small fraction of the venture capital private equity workforce. A widely used source for tracking the number of women in venture capital is the Midas List which has been published by Forbes since 2001. Research from Women in VC, a global community of women venture investors, shows that the percentage of female VC partners is just shy of 5 percent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tracy Chou (software engineer)</span> American software engineer

Tracy Chou is an American software engineer and advocate for diversity in technology related fields. She previously worked at Pinterest and Quora with internship experience at Google and Facebook.

The I Look Like an Engineer movement was created in August 2015 by software developer Isis Anchalee as a response to the backlash the OneLogin recruitment ad in which she was featured received. The movement aspired to break the stereotypes and promote diversity around underrepresented groups, particularly women, POC, and LGBTQ+ individuals in engineering fields. Its primary tactic is the use of the hashtag #ILookLikeAnEngineer on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, along with pictures of engineers or engineering students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheryl Sew Hoy</span> Entrepreneur, speaker and angel investor

Cheryl Sew Hoy is an entrepreneur, speaker and angel investor, best known for being the founding CEO of the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC), a government-funded agency to support entrepreneurship in Malaysia and ASEAN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erica Baker</span> Engineer and engineering manager

Erica Joy Baker is an engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chief Technology Officer for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and known for her outspoken support of diversity and inclusion. She has worked at companies including GitHub, Google, Slack, Patreon, and Microsoft. She gained prominence in 2015 for starting an internal spreadsheet where Google employees reported their salary data to better understand pay disparities within the company. Kara Swisher of Recode called Baker the "woman to watch" in a profile in C Magazine.

Working Women United (WWU) is a women's rights organisation based in the United States which was formed in Ithaca, New York in 1975, to combat sexual harassment of women in the workplace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Gelobter</span> American computer scientist and technologist (born 1971)

Lisa Gelobter is a computer scientist, technologist and chief executive. She was the Chief Digital Service Officer for the United States Department of Education.

Cynthia Marshall is chief executive officer of the Dallas Mavericks. In February 2018, Marshall became the first Black female CEO in the history of the National Basketball Association. Marshall was also one of her university's first African-American cheerleaders at the University of California, Berkeley in the late 1970s. Marshall worked for AT&T for 36 years in leadership role focused on improving workplace culture and encouraging diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Alliance Against Sexual Coercion (AASC) was an American organization that aimed to address sexual coercion and sexual harassment faced by working women. The organization was established in June 1976 by Freada Kapor Klein, Lynn Wehrli, and Elizabeth Cohn-Stuntz. They argued that sexual harassment toward women increases difficulties for women in the workplace by reinforcing the idea that women are inferior to men.

Laura I. Gomez is a computer scientist known for establishing Atipaca, a company that presents bias free names for hiring

References

  1. 1 2 Baker, Carrie (2008). The Women's Movement Against Sexual Harassment. Cambridge University Press. p. 44. ISBN   9780521879354 . Retrieved 2016-07-31.
  2. ↑ Thomas, Carla (2015-02-23). "Ben Jealous and Al Gore Honor Freada Kapor at Tech Diversity Forum". Post News. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Garofoli, Joe (2016-03-23). "Gender, racial equality a lifelong passion for Freada Kapor-Klein". SF Gate. Retrieved 2016-07-31.
  4. 1 2 Weiss, Phillip (1998-05-03). "Don't Even Think About It. (The Cupid Cops Are Watching.)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-07-31.
  5. ↑ Alba, Davey (2016-04-08). "A year after the Ellen Pao verdict, tech still gets diversity wrong". Wired. Retrieved 2016-07-31.
  6. ↑ "Freada Kapor Klein, PhD". Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-12-27. Retrieved 2016-07-31.
  7. ↑ "Freada Kapor Klein, PhD". University of Michigan. Archived from the original on 2016-01-26. Retrieved 2016-07-31.
  8. ↑ "List by Issue". FAAR-Aegis Archive. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  9. ↑ "Freada Klein". Impact Space. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  10. 1 2 Wickham, Phil (2015-12-13). "Interview with Freada Kapor Klein". Kauffman Fellows. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  11. ↑ Sulcer, Jarvis (2014-02-03). "Interview with the Level Playing Field Institute". Model View Culture. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  12. ↑ "Corporate Leaders Survey". LPFI. 2007-01-07. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  13. ↑ "The Tilted Playing Field: Hidden Bias in Information Technology Workplaces". LPFI. 2011-09-29. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  14. ↑ Green, Mike (2011-05-09). "Two Silicon Valley Moms Pursue a 'Level Playing Field' in STEM Education". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  15. ↑ Kapor Klein, Freada (2016-06-23). "Silicon Valley's leaky pipeline problem". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  16. 1 2 3 Torres, Blanca (2012-10-12). "Mitch Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein talk tech and other topics". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  17. ↑ "Handling back to work hurdles - The View from the Bay". ABC. 2008-01-17. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  18. ↑ "About Freada Kapor Klein". Klein Associates. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  19. ↑ Huet, Ellen (2016-05-03). "Ex-Kleiner VC Ellen Pao Introduces Diversity Initiative". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2016-07-29.
  20. ↑ Wingerter, Eric (2016-06-09). "Project Include names companies and VCs in first diversity and inclusion cohort". Kapor Center. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  21. ↑ "Board of Trustees". University of California Berkeley Foundation. 2016. Retrieved 2016-08-02.
  22. ↑ Fiegerman, Seth; O'Brien, Sara Ashley (2017-08-09). "Silicon Valley finally faces a reckoning with sexism". CNN Money. Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  23. ↑ "Deaths Kapor, Jesse". The New York Times. 2005-03-03. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  24. ↑ Jahn, Brittany (2012-02-22). "Court orders environmental impact report for construction of Kapor mansion". The Daily Californian. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  25. ↑ Cherney, Max (2016-06-30). "Kapor abandons plans to build North Berkeley mansion". Berkeleyside. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  26. ↑ Breines, Winifred (2006). The Trouble Between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist Movement. Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780190292492 . Retrieved 2016-07-31.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.