As organizations steer through an economy defined by digital footprints, heightened regulatory oversight, and globally distributed teams, the definition of effective leadership has fundamentally shifted. Growth and revenue remain important, but they are no longer sufficient on their own. Today’s leaders are judged by their discernment, ethical rigor, and capacity to cultivate trust across complex ecosystems. In this environment, Jaime Coy Frankos, Vice President of Global Partnerships & Alliances at Ferretly International, Inc., has emerged as a guiding force shaping how companies approach digital behaviors with accountability, compliance, and an unwavering respect for human context.
Utilizing Ferretly’s headquarters in Easton, Maryland, Jaime Frankos occupies a central role in advancing the company’s global strategy. She leads the development of strategic partnerships and alliances across diverse industries and international markets, ensuring alignment with Ferretly’s long-term vision. Since joining the organization, she has been a key architect of its customer-first approach, helping strengthen Ferretly’s reputation as a trusted, ethical leader in social media screening and digital risk management.
A Career Lead Through Trust, Versatility, and Purpose-Driven Partnerships
Jaime’s professional journey reflects a leadership philosophy rooted in contribution rather than designation. Her path to becoming Vice President of Global Partnerships & Alliances began when Ferretly’s CEO, Darrin Lipscomb, a leader she deeply respects and credits for placing early trust in her capabilities.
From the outset, Jaime Frankos was tasked with helping drive market expansion. Like many high-growth startups, Ferretly demanded versatility. She worked across marketing, sales, operations, and strategic partnerships, adopting a roll-up-your-sleeves approach that prioritized outcomes over hierarchy.
Central to her professional identity is a strong rejection of transactional sales culture. Jaime Frankos does not view partnerships as revenue channels alone, but as long-term relationships grounded in understanding, credibility, and shared value. She believes true success comes from deeply understanding a customer’s challenges and delivering solutions rooted in trust rather than pressure.
This philosophy is guided by a principle she lives by:
“Lead with integrity, hustle with purpose, and never settle for less than your best.”
This relationship-driven mindset naturally positioned her to lead Ferretly’s global partnerships. As the company grew, her role evolved organically, yet her focus remained constant: ensuring customers and partners are treated as collaborators, not transactions.
Ferretly’s Origin Story and Market Purpose
Ferretly was founded in 2019 by CEO Darrin Lipscomb and CTO Craig Eddy after identifying a significant gap in the background screening market. As social media became an extension of professional identity, existing screening tools failed to provide accurate, contextual, and legally defensible insights.
The company introduced a subject and behavioral-based social media screening platform focused on job-relevant digital behaviors such as hate speech, harassment, threats, violence, and sexual misconduct while deliberately avoiding personal beliefs or protected characteristics.
As Ferretly scaled, Jaime’s leadership helped ensure that growth never compromised integrity. Her belief that customers must remain at the center of every decision became foundational to Ferretly’s long-term strategy.
Leading Through Complexity and Constant Change
Rather than pointing to a single defining obstacle, Jaime Frankos characterizes her journey at Ferretly as a continual practice in adaptability. As with any high-growth startup, the organization encounters constant challenges across product evolution, operational execution, team dynamics, and day-to-day logistics.
Her most significant professional insight has been learning to balance resilience with perspective—remaining agile enough to pivot when necessary while keeping long-term goals firmly in view. She acknowledges that this environment is not for everyone, and that effective leadership requires discernment: knowing when to accelerate progress and when to pause, reassess, and recalibrate.
For Jaime Frankos, challenge is not an interruption to momentum; it is an inherent part of it. The ability to move decisively despite uncertainty reflects a belief she deeply admires:
“The most effective way to do it, is to do it.”– Amelia Earhart
That bias toward action continues to shape her leadership style in moments that demand clarity, courage, and forward motion.
Purposeful Insight, Defensible Behaviors, and Compliance by Design
Ferretly’s distinction is rooted in its behavior-based, compliance-first approach to social media screening. Rather than applying broad or indiscriminate filters, the platform is designed to surface only relevant behavioral risk, ensuring insights are purposeful, defensible, and firmly aligned with employment law.
At the core of this approach is Ferretly’s proprietary methodology, which blends advanced machine learning with trained human analysts. This hybrid model delivers a level of accuracy and contextual intelligence that fully automated systems often fail to achieve, particularly when interpreting nuance, culture, and intent.
By combining technology with human review, Ferretly significantly reduces false positives while maintaining a high standard of transparency. Reports clearly articulate findings and supporting rationale, enabling HR, legal, and compliance teams to make informed, consistent decisions with confidence.
Compliance is not an afterthought but a foundation. The platform is purpose-built to align with EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) guidance and FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) requirements, helping organizations mitigate bias, minimize disparate impact, and apply screening practices consistently across regions and jurisdictions.
Ultimately, Ferretly is not designed for surveillance. It is built for responsible risk management, advancing ethical innovation while supporting fair, informed, and legally sound hiring decisions.
| Ferretly at a Glance | |
|---|---|
| Metric | Snapshot |
| Founded | 2019 |
| Headquarters | Easton, Maryland |
| Global Presence | North America, Europe/Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America |
| Core Focus | Behavioral-based social media screening |
| Industries Served | Technology, Healthcare, Financial Services, Retail, Government, and more |
| Platform Approach | AI + Human Analyst Hybrid Model |
Thought Leadership and Industry Influence
Ferretly’s leadership extends beyond technology into education and policy influence. Jaime Frankos actively participates in proprietary initiatives that advance responsible screening practices.
The company regularly publishes whitepapers, executive briefings, and compliance-focused guides addressing bias mitigation, ethical AI, global hiring risk, and regulatory alignment. These resources are widely used by HR, legal, and compliance leaders to inform internal policies.
Jaime Frankos also contributes through speaking engagements, webinars, panels, and industry conferences, sharing insights on ethical hiring and workforce risk management. These forums allow Ferretly to influence emerging industry standards while remaining closely aligned with employer needs.
Additionally, Ferretly collaborates directly with clients and partners on advisory discussions tailored to complex hiring scenarios, remote workforce challenges, and reputational risk considerations.
| Growth and Market Impact | |
|---|---|
| Indicator | Performance Insight |
| Revenue Growth | Strong year-over-year growth |
| Client Base | Hundreds of partners and enterprises |
| Geographic Reach | Multi-region global adoption |
| Retention Rate | High customer retention |
| Net Promoter Score | Strong customer advocacy |
| Profiles Analyzed | Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, and more coming |
Partnerships as Strategic Leverage
Looking ahead, Jaime Frankos is overseeing a robust pipeline of strategic partnerships planned through 2026. These alliances are designed to expand Ferretly’s reach while enhancing product capabilities in response to evolving customer needs.
Her approach to partnerships is deliberate and selective. Every collaboration is evaluated through a customer-first lens, ensuring alignment with Ferretly’s ethical standards and long-term objectives.
For Jaime, partnerships are not about scale alone; they are about shared responsibility and sustained value creation.
Leadership Philosophy and Core Values
Jaime’s leadership philosophy was shaped early in her career during her internship at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where her boss placed real trust in her abilities. That experience encouraged independent thinking and confidence lessons that continue to influence her leadership today.
Equally impactful has been her father, whom she describes as her lifelong mentor. His example instilled a strong work ethic grounded in accountability, self-motivation, and personal responsibility. As a Naval Academy graduate, he instilled in those around him a deep respect for discipline, responsibility, and integrity. The example he set throughout his career — showing up, following through, and holding himself to high standards — played a meaningful role in shaping Jaime into the person she is today.
Honesty, integrity, and respect for hard work guide Jaime’s decision-making. She believes leadership is earned through consistency, follow-through, and the willingness to do the work without excuses or entitlement. In a startup, titles don’t define you — effort does. Everyone starts equal, and humility wins every time.
| The Ferretly Framework | |
|---|---|
| Pillar | Description |
| Risk-Based Screening | Focus on job-relevant digital behavior |
| Compliance-First Design | Alignment with EEOC & FCRA standards |
| Hybrid Intelligence | AI insights validated by human analysts |
| Transparency | Clear reporting and defensible rationale |
| Global Scalability | Adaptable across regions and industries |
The Future of Background Screening
Over the next three to five years, Jaime Frankos anticipates major shifts in the screening industry driven by expanding digital footprints, heightened scrutiny of AI, and increasingly remote global workforces.
Employers are moving beyond checkbox compliance toward ethical, transparent, and context-driven screening practices. Ferretly is purpose-built for this shift, combining innovation with accountability.
Continued investment in scalability, product enhancement, and thought leadership positions Ferretly to lead as screening becomes a strategic pillar of modern workforce management.
Vision for the Next Five Years
Jaime Frankos envisions Ferretly solidifying its leadership role in educating the market on the importance of social media screening as a standard hiring practice. She also aims for the company to contribute to advancing industry regulations that formally recognize screening as a necessary and responsible component of employment decisions.
For partners, her commitment is clear: to deliver meaningful value, act as a trusted collaborator, and support shared growth. Ultimately, she sees Ferretly elevating the entire hiring ecosystem, employers, partners, and candidates alike.
Open Letter to Aspiring Leaders
Trust your instincts before the world validates them.
You don’t need permission, perfect clarity, or a flawless roadmap to begin. What you do need is the willingness to show up, do the work, and stay committed when it gets hard. Leadership is built in moments of uncertainty when resilience matters more than comfort and adaptability matters more than rigid plans.
Most importantly, lead with integrity. Real leadership is not transactional or performative; it is grounded in honesty, accountability, and respect for the people around you. Build relationships before chasing results. Listen closely to your customers, your partners, and your teams. They will teach you more than any strategy deck ever could.
Success is not defined by titles or recognition alone. It is defined by trust earned, values upheld, and consistency over time. Create your own path, hustle with purpose, and earn credibility through action.
In the end, leadership is not about waiting for opportunity it is about creating it and rising to the responsibility that comes with it.
By Jaime Coy Frankos
Vice President, Global Partnerships & Alliances
Ferretly International, Inc.
Key Takeaways
- Leadership today is measured by ethics, judgment, and the ability to build trust at scale, not just by growth or revenue.
- Sustainable global growth is driven by relationship-first partnerships rather than transactional sales models.
- Ferretly differentiates itself through a behavior-based, compliance-first framework that combines AI with human analysis to deliver fair, defensible insights.
- Adaptability and strategic clarity are essential for navigating the constant change inherent in high-growth organizations.
- The future of background screening lies in ethical, transparent, and globally scalable practices that prioritize human context and regulatory compliance.
