# Deborah Hanus

> Deborah Hanus is the co-founder and CEO of Sparrow, a San Francisco-based HR technology company that combines AI automation with human expertise to manage employee leave. Armed with degrees from MIT (BS in Computer Science and Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MEng in EECS) and a Harvard PhD in Computer Science & Machine Learning, she left academia after watching six close friends struggle through the leave process and built the company from scratch as a solo founder. Sparrow has raised $55M in total funding (Series B led by Silver Lake Waterman in July 2025), serves 1,000+ companies including OpenAI and Reddit, and has saved customers over $350 million in payroll costs.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Sparrow
- **Organizations:** Sparrow Inc, Harvard University, MIT, Google, LeadGenius
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering, MIT, B.S. in Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT, M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, MIT, Ph.D. in Computer Science & Machine Learning, Harvard University
- **Known for:** Raised $55M in total funding as a solo founder before building executive team, Sparrow has saved customers over $350 million in payroll costs, Grew Sparrow team 3x in one year to 130+ employees across 30+ US states

## Career timeline

- **2013** — Fulbright Student Fellowship - research in Cambodia on education and employment
- **2015-2019** — Harvard PhD in Computer Science & Machine Learning; NSF Graduate Research Fellowship; Intel/ACM SIGHPC Computational Data Science Fellowship
- **2017** — Speaking at QCon New York
- **2017-2018** — Software Engineering PhD Intern at Google
- **2018** — Keynote Speaker at PyCon Colombia; published blog post 'How Regret Minimization Changed My Life'; decided to leave PhD to found Sparrow
- **2018-2019** — Founded Sparrow Inc in San Francisco
- **2022** — Raised $20M Series A led by WndrCo (Jeffrey Katzenberg)
- **2023** — Recognized in Transform 10: Most Inspiring Leaders of the Year; 23 Inspiring Women to Watch; SHRM speaker
- **2025** — Raised $35M Series B led by Silver Lake Waterman; Sparrow reaches 1,000+ customers; total savings to customers exceeds $350M

## Achievements

- Raised $55M in total funding as a solo founder before building executive team
- Sparrow has saved customers over $350 million in payroll costs
- Grew Sparrow team 3x in one year to 130+ employees across 30+ US states
- Series A led by WndrCo co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg ($20M, 2022)
- Series B led by Silver Lake Waterman ($35M, July 2025)
- Transform 10: Most Inspiring Leaders of the Year (2023)
- Named in '23 Inspiring Women to Watch in 2023'
- Fulbright Student Fellowship
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
- Intel/ACM SIGHPC Computational Data Science Fellowship
- Keynote Speaker PyCon Colombia 2018
- Speaker at SHRM25 Annual Conference
- Sparrow serves 1,000+ companies including OpenAI, Reddit, Bumble, Headspace, Oura, Chime, Gong

## Latest updates

- **2025-07** — Sparrow raised $35M Series B led by Silver Lake Waterman, with WndrCo continuing support. Total funding now $55M+.
- **2025-07** — Deborah Hanus announced plans to scale Sparrow's global AI-powered leave management solutions.
- **2025-05** — Panelist at SHRM25 Annual Conference: 'Shaping Tomorrow's HR: A Thought Leadership Panel on Emerging HR Tech Solutions'
- **2023-03** — Recognized in Transform 10: Most Inspiring Leaders of the Year for scaling Sparrow from 50 to 130+ employees.

## Links

- Website: https://deborahhanus.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-hanus-30021632/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/deborahhanus
- GitHub: https://github.com/dhanus
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deborahhanus/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/deborah-hanus
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-13