Editor’s note: This is the fifth profile of the finalists for Startup CEO of the Year ahead of the 2023 GeekWire Awards. Previously: Humanly CEO Prem Kumar; Rebellyous Foods CEO Christie Lagally; Phase Genomics CEO Ivan Liachko; and Joon Care CEO Emily Pesce.
Grin Lord really wants to help people understand each other.
After all, it’s what she’s been doing her entire career.
The licensed psychologist is CEO and co-founder of mpathic, a Seattle-based company aiming to bring more empathy to corporate communication. She’s a finalist for Startup CEO of the Year at next month’s GeekWire Awards.
Lord has worked on the same problem for 15 years: identifying words and phrases that increase empathy, trust, and alliance.
Her path to becoming a founder is unique. It started inside the ICU, where Lord researched how empathetic listening with DUI drivers following a car crash could help reduce future drinking habits.
She later used machine learning and speech signal processing technology to automate the analysis of conversations between psychologists and patients. That research helped form the basis of Lyssn, a Seattle startup where Lord was chief clinical officer.
In 2020 Lord teamed up with former Lyssn colleagues Nicolas Bertagnolli and Tad Hirsch to launch mpathic. The company originally began as Empathy Rocks, which teaches practitioners about human connection through a gamified platform.
The founders realized there was a business opportunity with the underlying empathy engine for that platform. Thus, mpathic was born.
The empathy-as-a-service company now serves large enterprises across industries such as insurance, healthcare, and human resources.
Its software analyzes conversations happening in texts, emails, audio calls, and more. The idea is to help employees identify potential misunderstandings or misinterpretations in their communication, and adjust in real-time.
“It makes business sense to treat people with empathy,” Lord said. “The more you understand your customer, the better you can meet their needs.”
Lord’s expertise on the science of empathy is part of mpathic’s secret sauce.
“She has been a driving force behind applications of empathetic communication across research, medicine, and now enterprise,” said Kirsten Suddath, general partner at Next Frontier Capital, which led the company’s $4 million seed round last year.
Lord uses empathy to be a better leader. Suddath said her favorite thing about working with Lord is her “straightforwardness.”
“She always tells it like it is — and of course in a highly empathetic way,” Suddath said.
Her listening skills are also a strong leadership trait, said Catherine Johnson, the company’s chief product officer.
“She wants to get to the bottom of problems,” Johnson said. “One might even say she listens with empathy.”
Lord is also a leading voice in the growing digital mental health sector. She’s the founder of a group called Therapists in Tech, which has more than 3,000 leaders working at the intersection of technology and mental health.
Lord is bullish on using software to help therapists provide better care. “Augmentation is the best first step,” she said.
She also sees promise in the idea of AI therapists, which are drawing more attention with the advent of OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool and could help address the shortage of mental health professionals.
“Psychologists and therapists should step in and lean in and understand that this is going to happen — and that it could be desirable,” Lord said.
There are pitfalls and risks with letting a robot provide therapy. That’s why Lord encourages people studying social sciences or psychology to look at entrepreneurship as a potential career path.
“The one thing we bring that is largely lacking in tech is this understanding of real human problems, and how humans think and work,” she said. “It’s funny when people say my background is untraditional. Even though that’s true, it’s actually a perfect fit for this type of work.”
