Tech Forward

Welcome back to Tech Forward, listeners! This week I spoke with Stephanie Lampkin, founder and CEO of Blendoor, technology that mitigates unconscious bias in hiring through artificial intelligence and people analytics. During Stephanie’s 14-year career in the tech industry, she has founded two startups and held technical roles at Lockheed, Microsoft, and TripAdvisor. Despite a tech background beginning in her teen years, Stephanie still faced hiring bias from recruiters who told her she was “not technical enough,” and tried to steer her towards sales and marketing roles. This was her inspiration to start Blendoor, which enhances the ability of humans to judge other humans based on merits — not molds. On Blendoor, qualified candidates are presented to recruiters with no names, photos, or age listed — just that they are a fit for the role. Once the company selects a candidate, the person’s identity is revealed. Stephanie designed Blendoor around the idea that certain demographics are disadvantaged, and often ve