Freada Kapor Klein, PhD

Freada Kapor Klein, PhD is an entrepreneur, activist, and pioneer in the field of organizational culture and diversity.

As a Founding Partner at Kapor Capital, Freada invests in seed-stage tech startups that create positive social impact by closing gaps of access, opportunity, or outcome for low-income communities and communities of color. The companies solve actual problems, aspiring to simultaneously generate economic value and positive social impact. Often the founders are drawing on their lived experiences to create businesses that address real needs.

She is the founder of SMASH, now in its 20th year, which provides rigorous STEM education and access to social capital for low-income high school students of color on 10 university campuses across the country.

Freada’s initial 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.

In 1976, she co-founded the Alliance Against Sexual Coercion, the first organization in the U.S. to address sexual harassment. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Research from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University; and has conducted numerous large survey projects on perceptions and experiences of bias, harassment, and disrespectful treatment in workplaces.

Freada is a member of the Obama Foundation Tech Policy Council, the U.C. Berkeley Board of Visitors, and the council that formed the Hollywood Commission chaired by Anita Hill. She serves on the advisory boards of Twilio.org, Generation Investment Management, and Trident; is a board observer at Aclima.io, a tech startup focusing on hyperlocal air quality monitoring, and serves on the NAACP National Board of Directors.

Freada and her husband, Mitch Kapor, are co-authors of Closing the Equity Gap, which identifies how to create wealth while simultaneously addressing the inequalities in startup investing. She is also the author of Giving Notice, which details the human and financial cost of hidden bias in the workplace.