iDiverse Breakfast:
Diverse Digital Workforce 2020

Freada’’s work is at the intersection of racial/social justice and tech. As a Partner at Kapor Capital (www.kaporcapital.com), Freada Kapor Klein, Ph.D. invests in women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color whose tech start-ups aspire to generate economic value and positive social impact.  Kapor Capital’s investment sectors include, but are not limited to, education, health, and consumer finance.  

Freada is the founder and Board Chair of the Level Playing Field Institute (www.lpfi.org), which promotes innovative approaches to fairness in higher education and workplaces. The Institute’s Summer Math and Science Honors Academy (SMASH), a three-summer high school program serving under-represented students of color, is in the process of scaling nationally.  The Academy works to ensure racial equity within the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  

The Institute’s workplace programs have conducted landmark research, including the 2011 study The Tilted Playing Field: Hidden Bias in IT Workplaces. Freada’s book Giving Notice: Why the Best and the Brightest Leave the Workplace and How You Can Help Them Stay (Jossey-Bass 2007) combines quantitative research on who leaves corporate America and why, with stories of day-to-day experiences detailing the human and financial cost.

Freada co-founded the first organization in the U.S. to address sexual harassment in 1976. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Research, and has conducted many large survey projects on perceptions and experiences of bias, harassment, and disrespectful treatment in workplaces.

Her first 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.

A frequent speaker (some of her 2014 engagements include presentations at: Asana, Generation Investment Management Women’s Leadership Summit, RAND Corp., Twilio, Twitter, and Women 2.0), Freada is also quoted and written about in the media (examples from 2014 include: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, National Public Radio, Huffington Post, Bloomberg, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Jose Mercury News).

Freada is also a Co-Chair of the Kapor Center for Social Impact (www.kaporcenter.org) and an Advisory Trustee of the U.C. Berkeley Foundation.

Twyla is the HR Lead and People Advisor for The Huffington Post and also oversees the Diversity & Inclusion program for AOL. She joined The Huffington Post family in July 2011 and advises on various activities including new acquisitions. She’s also held various Human Resources positions in other media outlets, such as The Boston Globe and The New York Times.

In her career, she has implemented diversity initiatives, driven organizational-people strategies and talent development. Early in her career she focused on student leadership, where she led The Boston Globe’s internship program, managed development and participated in career coaching for more than 300 students. She participated in pipeline initiatives with the INROADS and Howard University, in addition to facilitating cultural-emersion programs at The Boston Globe.

Today, she partners with Huffington Post leaders to maintain a positive work environment, high employee engagement and work life balance. In addition, she partners with AOLers to drive an inclusion environment. Furthermore, she implemented a multi-year AOL D&I strategy, formed a cross-AOL Diversity Council, implemented a successful diversity internship program, and oversees the strategic community partnership such as Year Up and IAB Education foundation on the iDiverse job development program.

Twyla grew up in New Jersey, and holds a Bachelors Degree in Communications Studies from Northeastern University. She is also a certified Senior Human Resources Professional and an active member of the Society for Human Resources Management. In her spare time, Twyla mentors students personally and professionally. She lives in New Jersey with her husband.

Randall Rothenberg is the Executive Chair of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade association for digital media and marketing in the United States. Among the IAB’s 750 member companies are such major platforms as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Snap; the nation’s most important ad-supported media companies, including The New York Times, Walt Disney Co., NBC Universal, ViacomCBS, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, Verizon Media, Hulu, Warner Media, LinkedIn, and Meredith; incumbent and disruptor brands, including Coca-Cola, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Hubble Contacts, ThirdLove, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, and Citigroup; and scores of technology and data companies, among them Mediamath, LiveRamp, Quantcast, and Pubmatic.

With these members and its 47 affiliate associations on every inhabited continent, the IAB and its sister technology-standards group, the IAB Tech Lab, serve as the digital marketing industry’s public policy and lobbying organization, market and consumer research center, training and development base, and hub for the development of standards and best practices.

Mr. Rothenberg joined the IAB in January 2007 as President and Chief Executive Officer, and led the organization until becoming Executive Chair in September 2020. During his tenure, the organization became one of the largest and most influential media and marketing trade bodies in the world, helping to develop technical standards, self-regulation, government regulation, market and consumer research, and professional development programs to protect consumer privacy, foster brand and media revenue growth, improve data security, and reduce supply chain friction in the digital marketing industry.

Prior to his IAB role, Mr. Rothenberg was the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Director of Intellectual Capital at Booz Allen Hamilton, the international strategy and technology consulting firm, where he oversaw business development, knowledge management, and thought leadership activities, and directed the award-winning quarterly business magazine strategy+business, Strategy+Business Books, www.strategy-business.com, and other electronic and print publications for senior business executives.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Rothenberg spent six years at The New York Times, where he was the technology editor and politics editor of the Sunday magazine, the daily advertising columnist, and a media and marketing reporter. For 10 years, he was a marketing and media columnist for Advertising Age. Mr. Rothenberg has written for a score of major national magazines, among them Esquire, GQ, The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, and New York Magazine. He is the author of four books, including Where the Suckers Moon: An Advertising Story (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), a critically-acclaimed chronicle of the birth, evolution, and death of a single advertising campaign.

Mr. Rothenberg, an avid nature, urban, and portrait photographer, serves on the Board of Directors of the International Center of Photography and the Board of Overseers of the Columbia Journalism Review. He received an undergraduate degree in Classics from Princeton and lives in New York City.

Like many digital immigrants, Michael started his career in traditional media, with a 15 year stint in local and network television news and radio. After graduating with an MBA from Harvard, he worked as a management consultant in Arthur D. Little’s Media and Entertainment practice. That led to his introduction to the Internet, upon which he served as GM at both CitySearch and Kozmo.com. For the past 12 years he has served in a variety of senior management positions with industry trade associations, including the New York New Media Association, Connecticut Technology Council, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, where he is currently VP, Training & Development and is responsible for the Digital Media Sales Certification program and professional development workshops.

Karen J. Watai is the President of KWA Leadership Consulting LLC, a firm which specializes in executive coaching, facilitation, and customized training. She has worked closely with her clients to develop their personal and organizational leadership through the innovative design of results-oriented practices and learning experiences.

In addition to the broader leadership arena, Karen focuses on the specific challenges of personal and organizational leadership in environments characterized by a diversity of cultures, gender, and work styles. She collaborates with Professor David A. Thomas on programs based on his book Breaking Through – the Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America. One of these programs received an International Innovation in Diversity Award from Profiles in Diversity Journal.

Karen has coached and/or trained individuals from a variety of organizations including Goldman Sachs, New York Life, Kaplan Inc., Comcast, Prudential, HSBC, BET Networks, Tory Burch, DLA Piper, and Harlem RBI. Her coaching clients include Executives, Partners, Vice Presidents, and managers of corporations, professional services firms, hedge funds, and non-profits. She has also been a coach for the Global Institute for Leadership Development and Harvard Business School Executive Education.

Prior to founding KWA Leadership Consulting LLC, Karen spent almost 20 years in the investment banking and private equity industries. She was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs where she executed transactions in the Private Finance Department and was a relationship manager in the Capital Markets Department. She also worked in the Management Development and Training Department where she designed, developed and delivered major initiatives including mentoring, diversity, compliance, and business programs. Karen left Goldman Sachs to become a partner in the Exeter Group of Funds, a private mezzanine and equity investment firm.

Karen holds a J.D. and M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, as well as an A.B. from Harvard University. She has received the Master Certified Coach designation, the highest credential awarded by the International Coach Federation. She is certified in the Hogan Assessment Systems, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and the PDI Profilor. KWA Leadership Consulting LLC is certified as a Minority Business Enterprise.