Freada Kapor Klein, Ph.D.
Trustee
Mitchell Kapor Foundation

Freada has been working on issues of discrimination and diversity since the early 1970′s. In 1976 she co-founded the first organization in the United States to offer comprehensive services, training, and consultation on the topic of sexual harassment to both the private and public sectors. After receiving her Ph.D. in social policy and research from the Heller School at Brandeis University, with an SSRC fellowship for the study of sexual harassment in federal government employment, she became the first Director of Employee Relations for Lotus Development Corporation. At Lotus, she was responsible for employee relations, affirmative action, management development and training, performance appraisal, and employee complaint channels.

After leaving Lotus, Freada launched her own business that allowed her to combine activism and research, and to impact the workplace. She became the President of Klein Associates, Inc., a boutique organizational development and human resource consulting firm dedicated to linking employee needs with business strategy, particularly regarding issues of employee diversity. The firm developed extensive experience in designing, conducting, and analyzing employee surveys, complemented by intervention in training, consultation, and policy development.

In this context, her research has included the design and analysis of numerous proprietary surveys for consulting firms, academic medical centers, corporations, health care institutions, law firms, and campus-wide surveys for universities. In addition to her work for individual organizations, she has conducted several landmark industry studies, including: an annual survey of quality of worklife issues in Internet start-ups, a survey of Fortune 500 manufacturing and service firms to determine the effectiveness of corporate efforts to address sexual harassment, a survey of gender bias and sexual harassment experienced by Massachusetts physicians and medical students, and the Demonstration Project on Diversity for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. For many years, Freada also served as an expert witness in pivotal legal cases involving sexual harassment.

Freada has been has been interviewed for numerous publications, including Business Week, The Chicago Tribune, Forbes, Fortune, The Harvard Business Review, The Los Angeles Times, The National Law Journal, Newsweek, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Television appearances include:  Today, NBC Nightly News, Prime Time Live, Nightline, Newshour, 20/20, CBS This Morning, and Good Morning America.