Lauren Fitzpatrick Shanks is an entrepreneur, award-winning engineer, tech leader, writer, mentor, wife, mother of two, former gymnast that still loves to flip, and avid conversationalist. 

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She spent 14 years working at five Fortune 500 companies (Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Leidos, Honeywell, and Intel), holding various leadership roles in design, system testing, product creation, staffing, software program management, and operations. 

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As a Black millennial woman in engineering & tech, she's no stranger to breaking barriers and being the "first" or "only." Lauren is the first Black woman to graduate from The University of Kansas' Aerospace Engineering Department and the first Black woman to win the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) international design competition. She's a recipient of the Women in Technology Rising Star Award, and she has an MBA in Operations Management from the University of Scranton. 

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Lauren is now the Founder and CEO of KeepWOL. Using her technical background, fascination with psychology, and determination to make things fun, she built a technology company that uses games to deeply understand how people think and what influences their decisions.  

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Lauren serves on the University of Kansas's School of Engineering DEIB Advisory Council. She believes mentorship is one of the greatest gifts she can give and is an active career mentor to multiple people of color in STEM professions. 

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Though she's an engineer by trade, at her core, she's a curious, and at times overly transparent, conversationalist with a superpower of getting others to break down their fear of vulnerability and feel comfortable sharing as well. Her top two values are authenticity and legacy, and she keeps these front of mind in everything she does.