Lauren Fitzpatrick Shanks
Founder & CEO
Tech, Aerospace, Entrepreneur
Phoenix, AZ, USA
Listen to Lauren’s Podcast!
Lauren Fitzpatrick Shanks is the Creator & Chief Wonderer (CEO) for KeepWOL. With more than a decade of experience working at 5 different Fortune 500 companies plus being a black millennial woman in engineering & tech, Lauren understands from a personal and professional level what keeps employees engaged and wanting to stay at a company.
She holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering and an MBA in Operations Management. But 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. The combination of her strengths led her to create Keep Wondering Out Loud or, as she likes to call it, KeepWOL.
KeepWOL builds learning and development technology for teams that maximizes cultural intelligence through storytelling games and training content that is personalized to each employee’s learning preferences.
KeepWOL’s Origin Story
KeepWOL stands for Keep Wondering Out Loud and began as an exciting card game tailored to personal relationships and new connections, developed by Lauren Fitzpatrick Shanks. The card game was simple and entertaining and, most importantly, peeled back the layers so we could all get to know each other on a deeper level. Lauren quickly found that others shared her curiosity and appreciation, selling over 1,000 games on three continents.
During the pandemic and Great Resignation, Lauren shifted the business model, finding an untapped opportunity to build communication skills for teams and employees at the enterprise and business levels. She expanded the methodology to include objective pathways built around science, psychology, and artificial intelligence.
“Keep Wondering Out Loud was my solution to breaking walls down and jumpstarting meaningful relationships. I’m thrilled that we can now offer KeepWOL to teams around the globe! Because people have relationships with people, not companies.”
– Lauren Fitzpatrick Shanks
