Freada Kapor Klein, Ph.D., founder of the Level Playing Field Institute (LPFI) and co-founder of the SMASH Academy, is a nationally recognized authority on issues of bias, harassment, and diversity. She co-founded the first organization in the US to focus on sexual harassment in 1976.  She received her Ph.D. in social policy and research in 1984.

As Lotus Development Corporation's first Director of Employee Relations and Organizational Development beginning in 1984, Freada was responsible for diversity efforts, management development and training, performance appraisal, employee complaint channels, and corporate philanthropy.

In 1987 she launched a boutique firm, Klein Associates, which offers consultation, research, and training to domestic and international clients—primarily professional services firms.  Over the last 30+ years, Freada's research has included the design and analysis of numerous proprietary surveys for consulting firms, law firms, academic medical centers, corporations, health care institutions, law firms, and campus-wide surveys for universities.

Aside from her work for individual clients, she has also carried out 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 and/or race and sex discrimination.

Freada and LPFI's Research Team have conducted studies on topics such as the STEM education opportunity gap, hidden bias in IT workplaces, and diversity in non-profits.  The Institute's groundbreaking Corporate Leavers Study examined the cost of unwanted employee turnover due solely to workplace unfairness.  The study's findings were incorporated into Freada's book Giving Notice: Why the Best and the Brightest Leave the Workplace and How You Can Help Them Stay (Jossey-Bass 2007), which combines data from quantitative research on who leaves Corporate America and why, along with stories of day-to-day experiences detailing the human and financial cost.

In addition to her current work with LPFI and Klein Associates, Freada is also a Trustee of the UC Berkeley Foundation and the Mitchell Kapor Foundation (www.mkf.org). As a Venture Partner at Kapor Capital (www.kaporcapital.com), she invests in entrepreneurs of color and women entrepreneurs whose IT start-ups have a social impact.

Freada has been interviewed by numerous publications, including Business Week, the Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, the Harvard Business Review, the Los Angeles Times, The National Law Journal, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.