Connecting with Freada Kapor Klein

How have relationships influenced your professional development and leadership style?

As an investor, advocate, and researcher, I’ve found relationships are incredibly important. I have always believed that none of us are free until all of us are free. That’s the lesson of a lifetime of work collaborating with a diverse group of incredible individuals whose ambition, vision, and intelligence never fail to amaze me.

In my relationships, I challenge assumptions, celebrate achievements, and call out toxic behavior. When there are racial and social crises, like a mass shooting or fatal police beating, I hit pause. I reach out to those who are impacted, acknowledge the pain, and make the time and space needed to work through the trauma. I have no patience for platitudes or performative nonsense. Authenticity is the key to creating and keeping long-standing relationships. Investing in those takes time and patience, but it’s worth it because everyone has the power to move something.

Do you have any tips for maintaining and building strong relationships?

• Define your shared values and don’t lose sight of them. People can learn new skills and pursue new careers or interests which impact how close we may or may not remain, but when a core set of values are aligned, it means you can be friends or colleagues for life.
• Build your empathy and curiosity muscles and whole new worlds will open up. Make listening and honesty a priority to build relationships that are enriching, engaging, and enlightening.
• Show up. If someone needs you, and you can get there, make the effort to be at their side at their time of crisis. I’ve flown halfway around the world just to offer a few days of moral support.

How have you intentionally built inclusiveness into your circles?

This starts with a commitment to principles of fundamental fairness, respect, and dignity.

I create a welcoming environment. I set diversity goals. I focus on the distance traveled — the cumulative adversity — faced by a student, advocate, or entrepreneur rather than their pedigree. And I recognize their resilience and commitment to service.

Two years ago, a decade after launching our first fully committed gap-closing venture capital fund, Kapor Capital, we were confident that our partners Ulili Onovakpuri and Brian Dixon were ready to take over. They agreed. For Silicon Valley, this was groundbreaking. Years earlier, Ulili and Brian had been among the first Black investors to become partners at a Bay Area seed-stage tech venture capital firm. Now they’re running it.

In our new book, my husband Mitch Kapor and I share specific systems we’ve baked into our communities to build equity and diversity.

 What community or communities are you proud to be a part of?

I’m proud to be part of several remarkable, inclusive communities. I have the most laughter and tears with our community of Kapor Capital entrepreneurs who are breaking new ground in the tech and VC ecosystems by working for racial and social justice. Their definition of success has a double bottom line: financial gains, yes, but more importantly they’re closing gaps of access, opportunity, and outcome for low-income communities and communities of color. As a friend, mentor, and investor, I love working with these CEOs as they build high-growth tech businesses while creating greater access to education, health care, and even wealth-building. My role is to serve on their advisory boards, bring them together, or introduce them to VCs and customers, and then stand back and watch them shine.

I am also proud to be a member of the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Board of Visitors and a newly elected member of the historic National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)’s National Board of Directors.

Who’s a Connector that's made a difference in your life? 

I met my husband Mitch Kapor when he hired me to help make his booming tech firm Lotus Software (home to the famous spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3) “the most progressive company in the world.” Together, over decades, we’ve been each other’s best connectors. I came from a racial and social justice background, deeply rooted in research-based solutions. Mitch is a tech leader, whose work in venture capital moved him through entirely different networks. Our connections now overlap, whether we’re studying barriers to diversity and devising practical inclusion solutions, investing in gap-closing tech companies, or supporting Black, Latinx and Indigenous students to have access to STEM education and work.

Susan McPherson is a serial connector, seasoned communicator and founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies, a communications consultancy focused on the intersection of brands and social impact. She is the author of The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Relationships.

Follow Susan on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram and order her new book, The Lost Art of Connecting, also available on Kindle and Audiobook.