Welcome Crystal Moore, Our New VP of Brilliant Black Minds

When we launched Brilliant Black Minds, we knew we were onto something big. The tech industry is our generation’s greatest driver of wealth, but less than five percent of software engineers are Black. We committed to changing that through Brilliant Black Minds – our movement to double the number of Black engineers – where we have created a community for aspiring Black engineers to practice for technical interviews, receive career development workshops, and have a safe space to connect with one another as they navigate the job market and finding the job of their dreams.

We’ve had many early successes with Brilliant Black Minds: bringing Serena Williams on as an investor and our Champion of Brilliance, our program engaging over 2000 participants and growing, to having five leading companies commit to hiring directly from our community. Today we have another exciting development: we have hired Crystal Moore as our Vice President of Brilliant Black Minds.

“When we created the Brilliant Black Minds program, we knew that doubling the number of Black engineers in tech over the next decade would be a bold goal. By hiring Crystal, we can scale this movement — strengthening our partnerships with organizations who have long been committed to this work, and recruiting and supporting even more Black engineers across the country,” Karat Co-Founder and President Jeffrey Spector said. “Crystal has deep relationships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other educational communities, extensive experience building partnerships across industries, and a personal connection to the importance of unlocking opportunities through technology. We’re thrilled to have Crystal at the helm of this movement.”

 “Throughout my life, I’ve benefited from the support of mentors and champions who opened professional doors for me. I joined Karat to pay forward this support at scale by unlocking opportunities for aspiring Black engineers,” Crystal Moore said. “Increasing the diversity of technical talent will provide economic opportunities for the Black community for years to come. By providing actionable guidance and support to land roles in technology, Karat is changing lives. For me, this is a movement for generational change that I am excited to join.”

Crystal will report directly to Karat’s co-founder and President Jeffrey Spector who serves as the executive sponsor for this program. In this newly created role, Crystal will lead a cross-functional team and focus on expanding the program’s impact and building strategic partnerships across industries.

Before joining Karat, Crystal served as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Strategic Education, Inc., a publicly-traded education technology company. Previously, Crystal was a White House Fellow as part of the White House Domestic Policy Council, leading stakeholder engagement among HBCU leaders for the President’s domestic policy agenda. Prior to the White House, Crystal served as Senior Director of Business Development for Fullbridge, Inc., a venture-backed education technology company. Her efforts at Fullbridge supported the creation of online and blended-learning programs on college campuses, ensuring over 12,000 students have exposure to career readiness skills. Before Fullbridge, Crystal was a management consultant at Parthenon-EY, where she advised colleges and universities, national foundations, policy organizations, and private investment firms. Her commitment to the education sector began as a ProInspire fellow at D.C. public schools which led her to intern for the White House Domestic Policy Council’s education policy team.

A graduate of Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and Xavier University of Louisiana, Crystal is a third-generation HBCU alum. She lives in Jackson, MS, and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the Council for Foreign Relations, the women’s networking organization CHIEF, and a former participant in INROADS, a partner of Brilliant Black Minds that creates pathways to careers for diverse high school and college students.

Welcome to Karat, Crystal! We cannot wait to unlock opportunity, together.