Katie In England

Welcome to our weekly corner: Getting to Know. Every week, we’ll take a few minutes to catch up with a Claira team member to help our readers and users get to know them better. You know what Claira does, so let us highlight the people behind the machine and what makes them an expert in workforce development through different questions. Hopefully, this will give you a glimpse into their personalities and even their competencies.

This week, we’re getting to know Katie Hall, founder and CEO of Claira. Katie is a passionate advocate for a technology enabled inclusive workforce. She has a wealth of experience that has given her a deep understanding of the challenges that companies and people face as they try to navigate an outdated system.

Katie recently attended the Global Opportunity Summit in London. Hosted by GOI, which is an annual event supported by MIT that brings together leaders from business, governments, and academia to discuss the future of work. Katie was invited to speak at the summit about her work with Claira and her vision for the future.

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What were your biggest takeaways from the summit? What were some of the most interesting conversations you had?

What I loved about the event was the deep dedication to changing both education and work, as they are totally connected. So much good work has been done globally to align what we teach in the school systems with what employers want, but they really are part of the same system.

We all know learning is lifelong, constant and part of a feedback loop with the various jobs and experiences we have. I actually started Claira based on this idea. Funny story I always like to share - I was at a TA3 conference in the Netherlands a few years back., At the event, the education administrators were on one side of the room, and industry leaders on the other side. Both were trying to foster a competency-oriented approach, but would just not realize they were al working towards the same goal. I knew this would be the new model, so I worked out a way to package machine learning based competency models and packaged it as SaaS.

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What advice would you give to other women who are looking to break into the workforce development or entrepreneurship space?

Interestingly, workforce development and education are two industry segments where there is much more diversity in general, which is great. This is the same for startups in these areas, but of course there are miles yet to go. We all know the stats about the amount of venture funding that goes to solo female founders, in particular. I always say to women and girls: Yes, you know what the numbers are and that it’s going to be hard. Just go for it, who cares, don't worry about failing... Dreams are fuel, creating and chasing something you believe in is an epic ride and there are many women who will support you along the way, don't be afraid to ask!

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What are your hopes for the future of workforce development and how can Claira help shape the future of your vision?

I believe that technology, specifically competencies paired with machine learning, can level the playing field. A competency is just - a thing you can do at work. Everyone in the world has competencies, what if that was all that mattered? And there was a global dataset of what everyone could do, updated in real time? Job descriptions, resumes, degrees, assessments are all too slow to keep pace with the changing needs of business, driven by innovation and the market. It’s also a system that only includes half of the world’s population. There is no such thing as non-traditional anymore, there is only the old system and the new one.

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What were your expectations for London before you visited and how did London compare to them?

MIT puts on great events, so I knew they would be good. The speakers and attendees I met over the three days were exceptional. Government officials, other startup founders, business leaders and large companies shared their challenges and what they’re excited about. The very clear call to action at the summit was that we are in the age of AI now and it’s time to reimagine everything about work and learning, build back up from the studs out. It was a reaffirmation of our vision at Claira and the approach we’re taking to build the new infrastructure for work. We are right where we are supposed to be and the time is now.

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