BOARD OF TRUSTEES
2015-2016
Grace Won | Board President
Grace has been a business litigation partner with Farella, Braun + Martel LLP since 2002 and has served as the firm's hiring partner and pro bono chair. Grace serves on the Board of Directors for Children Now, a non-partisan children's advocacy group, and was formerly a member of its Executive Committee. She is serving in her fifth year as a trustee at SFDS, and previously served as president of the Cow Hollow School Board. Grace holds a B.A. cum laude in American History from Harvard University and an M.A. in Anglo-American Literature from
University College London. She received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. Grace and her husband Richard Holden have children in fourth and sixth grades at SFDS.
Rita Abraldes
Rita Abraldes is an advisor with Boom Planning, a San Francisco financial
planning firm dedicated to helping clients navigate and plan for all life stages. Her professional background is in education, entrepreneurship and small business management. Rita co-founded two Cuban restaurants in San Francisco combining her love of food with a passion for the heritage cuisine she grew up with. She received her undergraduate degree from Vassar College and a graduate degree in history from Stanford University. Rita has taught history at Bay Area community colleges and to high school students at the College Preparatory School in Oakland. She embraces learning as a life-long venture. Rita’s engagement in the school community includes volunteering for admissions tours and active participation in the Parent Group on Diversity and SEED. She is especially dedicated to working with young people and recently served as a tutor in the Breakthrough SF program at SFDS. Rita and her partner, Brie Williams, have a son in third grade and a daughter in kindergarten at SFDS.
Katie Albright
Katie Albright is the executive director of the San Francisco Child Abuse
Prevention Center, a local community-based organization. Katie is in her seventh year serving on the SFDS Board of Trustees, and also served on a number of other non-profit boards and government commissions. She received her J.D. from
Georgetown University Law Center and her B.A. from Williams College. Katie and her husband Jake have a son, Ben ’14, and a daughter in seventh grade at SFDS.
Eric Alt
Eric Alt is a managing director and co-chief investment officer at Hall Capital Partners LLC, which manages global, multi-asset class portfolios for families, foundations and endowments. He is also a member of the firm's Executive
Committee and Investment Review Committee. Prior to joining the firm in 2006, Eric spent four years as a managing director in convertible securities at Piper Jaffray & Co. in San Francisco. Eric is a member of the Development Board of the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a member of the Investment Committees of San Francisco Day School and Dignity Health. This is Eric’s first year serving as an SFDS Board Trustee. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and earned an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Eric and his wife Claire have two children in fourth and sixth grades at SFDS. Reed Colley
Reed Colley is the CEO and founder of FlightPath, a cloud-based software company focused on helping companies and people take charge of their meeting lives. Prior to FlightPath, Reed was the CEO and founder of Black Diamond and had been in financial services software for over 15 years. Reed and his wife, Katie Colley, are founders and trustees of Do Something Great Today Foundation, which is focusing on creating technology to enable donors to give of their time and
resources more effectively to the charities of their choice. He has served on the SFDS Board of Trustees since 2013. Reed graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1998 with degrees in economics and engineering science. Reed and Katie have four children attending SFDS in kindergarten, third grade, and fifth grade. Ginny Conner | President, Parents Association
Ginny Conner is a pediatric dentist and part-time clinical faculty at Pacific Dental School. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Duke University and then
attended Pacific Dental School, graduating with honors. Ginny then completed an Advanced Education in General Dentistry Residency at University of California, San Francisco followed by a Pediatric Dentistry Residency at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A Diplomat of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry, she has worked on faculty at the Mott’s Children’s Health Center in Flint, MI, as well as in private practice in both Baltimore, MD and San Francisco. At SFDS Ginny has been in involved in the Parents Association and the annual fundraiser. Ginny and her husband, Ed, have two daughters at SFDS in second and fourth grade.
Tommy Davis '96
Tommy Davis is currently a vice president at General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm, where he has focused on investments in the Internet, technology and financial services sectors since 2008. From 2011-2013, Tommy attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he received his MBA. Prior to General Atlantic, Tommy spent three years as an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley, in both their financial institutions M&A group and the
financial sponsors group. He graduated from Bowdoin College with a B.A. in 2005, majoring in government and legal studies and minoring in Spanish. He graduated from San Francisco Day School in 1996 and joined the Board of Trustees in 2012. Tommy has two sisters who are also SFDS graduates: Louise ’95 and Jeannie ’12.
Cathy Cockrum Dean
Cathy Dean has 16 years of managerial experience in financial services, industrial manufacturing, and high technology businesses. Since 2002, she has contributed to a number of not-for-profit organizations, including serving on the Board of
Gateway Public Schools for nine years, and chairing Gateway’s Board of Trustees from 2005-2009. For the past six years, Cathy has served on the national Board of Directors for Reading Partners, as this organization has grown from serving 850 to 7500 students annually, and she recently served as the national Board Chair. Cathy is in her eleventh year as a parent at SFDS, and has been active in a variety of activities at the school including as a member of the advisory board for
Breakthrough Collaborative at SFDS. Cathy has also served as a room parent (twice), co-chair of the Parent Group on Diversity (2 years), and co-chair of Parent Education (3 years). Cathy received her A.B. from Brown University and her MBA
from Harvard Graduate School of Business. She and her husband Sandy have a daughter Sarah ’14 and two children at SFDS attending seventh and eighth grade. Andrea C. Evans
Andrea Evans is an attorney specializing in human rights litigation and
policy. She has litigated a wide range of civil and criminal cases and was the legal director of a San Francisco human rights based non-profit, the Center for Justice & Accountability (“CJA”). During her stint at CJA, Andrea litigated a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. She currently serves as the President of the San Francisco Fire Commission (first appointed in 2008 by Mayor Gavin Newsom and re-
appointed by Mayor Edwin Lee in 2012). She has also previously served on the SF Commission on the Status of Women, the SF Family Violence Council, and is now a member of the Board of Trustees of the KIPP Bay Area Schools. Andrea
received her B.A. in political science from Stanford University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. This is Andrea’s first year serving as an SFDS board
trustee. She and her husband Chris Lehane, have two sons attending SFDS in third and fifth grade.
Humberto “Bert” Galleno
Bert is the founder of Gravity Capital Group, a corporate development and strategic planning services firm working with early stage and mature companies. Bert has served on the SFDS Board of Trustees since 2012, is currently a trustee of the Reading Partners Bay Area Regional Board, and previously served as the
President of the Board of the Bay Area Discovery Museum. At San Francisco Day School, Bert is a member of and has chaired the Parent Group on Diversity. He has also been an officer of the Parents Association serving as the Diversity Chair. Bert and his wife Lareina have three sons, two of whom attend third and seventh grade at SFDS.
Lexie Fisher George ’00 | SFDS Alumni Board President
Lexie is a fifth-grade reading teacher at KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy. After graduating from SFDS in 2000, Lexie attended Lick-Wilmerding High School and then matriculated to Middlebury, a small liberal arts college in rural Vermont. Lexie graduated as an art history major and discovered a passion for education. After college, she joined Teach for America, an organization that places recent college grads to teach in low-income schools across the United States. She served a two-year commitment as a fifth and sixth grade writing teacher at a charter school
in Brooklyn and received a Masters degree in education at Hunter University in New York. Lexie has served as President on the SFDS Alumni Board since 2013. Fif Ghobadian
Fif Ghobadian is the CEO and co-founder of Road Twenty-Two, a San Francisco- based clothing company that specializes in luxurious, made-in-America basics and supports women in need with employment opportunities. She is also currently a Senior Loan Officer with Guarantee Mortgage. For over 21 years, Fif held
financial positions at firms such as Levi-Strauss & Co., The Gap, Inc., Clorox, and McKesson. Fif has served on the SFDS Board of Trustees since 2010, and was a board member at Pacific Primary for four years and the president of the board for two of those years. Fif has also been on the board of GirlSource, a San Francisco non-profit organization that provides leadership and developmental opportunities to low-income teenage girls and The Impala Racing Team, a competitive women’s running team. Fif holds a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College with a double major in economics, accounting and math. Fif has a son Spencer ’14 and a daughter in eighth grade at SFDS.
John Hayashi
John Hayashi is a tax attorney at Thompson Tax & Associates, LLC, a firm he co- founded 14 years ago. At SFDS, John began serving on the Board of Trustees in 2012, and has also participated as Volunteer Chair of the Parents Association (PA) and an officer of the PA Executive Committee. Additionally, he was a co-chair on the Parent Volunteer Committee for Admission, participated in developing the SFDS Strategic Plan, and was a member of the Head of Upper School Search Committee four years ago. John earned a degree in business management and managerial science from M.I.T. and his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. A third generation Japanese-American, John and his wife Elisa have a daughter in eighth grade at SFDS.
Janet McKinley
Janet McKinley began her professional career in retail buying and currently owns Janet McKinley Interiors. Janet received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a professional certificate from New York School of Interior Design. Passionate about education, she has spent the last 26 years supporting institutions and programs that inspire and support learning. Janet is currently on the Board of the SF Film Society, serves on the Education and Exhibits Committee of the California Academy of Sciences and manages several endowed undergraduate
learning and development grants. She has also served on the boards of Saint Luke’s Hospital Foundation, SF University High School, and the California
Academy of Sciences. She has served on the SFDS Board of Trustees since 2012, has been involved in three capital campaigns, and is a former chair for the
education and trustee committees. Janet and her husband Tom are parents of Sara ’95, Thomas ’98, and Kathryn ’01.
Ken McNeely
Ken McNeely is president of AT&T California, the largest domestic market for AT&T Inc. As such, he leads AT&T’s workforce in the state of more than 35,000 employees. This is Ken’s fourth year serving on the SFDS Board of Trustees. Ken has served as a room parent, admission volunteer, member of the Parent Group on Diversity and Co-Chair of Development and Endowment. He earned his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his J.D. from Howard
University School of Law. Ken and his husband Inder have two children attending third and fifth grade at SFDS.
Gabrey Means
Gabrey Means is co-founder and creative director of Grow Marketing, an
experiential marketing shop founded in San Francisco in 2001. Grow has crafted award-winning campaigns for a range of clients from Google and LVMH to Pepsi and GE. Gabrey is married to fellow entrepreneur and creative director, Tommy Means. The Means lend their creative talents and time to support their passions from producing fundraising films, opening their home and offices for community- building fundraising events, and lending their brand expertise to support a range of beloved organizations. This is Gabrey’s third year on the SFDS Board of Trustees. Gabrey holds a B.A. in journalism from Washington & Lee University. Gabrey and Tommy have two children in fourth and sixth grade at SFDS.
Raj Moorthy
Raj Moorthy is a co-founder and partner at Pivot Point Capital (PPC) and brings experience and expertise derived from more than fifteen years of public market and private equity investing. Prior to co-founding PPC, Raj worked in private equity at the Audax Group. He concentrated on identifying and executing operationally focused leveraged buyouts. His transactions ranged across industries, but centered on well-positioned businesses undergoing significant change. Previously, he worked at Advanta Partners, where he completed leveraged buyout and growth capital investments in the business and information services sectors. He also co-
founded and served as CFO for a European technology-based start-up. He began his career in the mergers & acquisitions group of Credit Suisse First Boston. Raj received his B.A. with honors from University of Western Ontario and his MBA from Harvard Business School. Raj and his wife Sasha have two children at SFDS attending first and third grade.
Alicia Nogales
Alicia Nogales has a diverse background in film, television, and arts education. Alicia serves as Chair for First Exposures, a project of the Tides Foundation. First Exposures is a nationally recognized one-to-one mentoring program, which
provides free weekly photography classes to underserved youth. This is Alicia’s seventh year serving on the SFDS Board of Trustees. Alicia and her husband Greg have three sons: Jack ’14, Brian ’15 and a third currently attending eighth grade at SFDS.
Jenny Pearlman
Jenny Pearlman is the Community Education & Communications Manager of the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center. Previously, Jenny consulted for a variety of nonprofits on communication and strategy issues and worked for several years as a lawyer and education advocate with the nonprofit law firm, Public
Advocates. Jenny serves as a board member of Community Initiatives, an advisory board member of San Francisco Breakthrough, and on the Grants Committee for Hedge Funds Care. At SFDS, Jenny joined the Board of Trustees in 2010 and has been a room parent, art volunteer, and member of the Diversity Committee. Jenny received her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. Jenny and her husband Jack McDonald have a daughter Pilar ’15 and three children in second, fifth, and seventh grade at SFDS. Nehal Raj
Nehal Raj is a partner of TPG, a global private investment firm, where he leads the firm’s investment activities in the technology sector. Nehal received an M.B.A. with High Distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker
Scholar. Nehal also received an A.B. with Distinction in economics and an M.S. in industrial engineering from Stanford University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. In his capacity at TPG, Nehal sits on the board of directors of a number of public and private companies, including CCC Information Services, Domo,
Sutherland Global Services and Zscaler. Nehal also serves on the Advisory Board of Breakthrough San Francisco. This is Nehal’s first year serving on the SFDS
Board of Trustees. He and his wife Jenny have two children attending first and second grade at SFDS.
Ann Roberts
Ann Roberts has a diverse background in strategy and finance and is an active community leader. Ann began her career as a strategic planner for a $1B private enterprise and later as a consultant at Bain & Company. Most recently, she worked in venture capital, spending her last four years helping to run a portfolio company in the education space. Ann is also on the Board of the California Tennis Club and participates on the Grants Committee of a giving circle called One Sky. Ann began serving on the SFDS Board of Trustees in 2010 and has also held many other roles: Chair for CultureFest: Italia, annual fund class captain, room parent, art volunteer, and member of the strategic planning task force. Ann has a B.A. from Bethany College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Ann and her husband Brian have a daughter Jill ’15 and two children attending fifth and seventh grade at
SFDS.
Laura Spivy
Laura has a diverse business background with experience in corporate finance, private equity investing, and general business management and operations. She has served on the SFDS Board of Trustees since 2008, and also serves on the Board of Trustees of Gateway Public Schools. Laura received an Economics/East Asian Studies B.A. from Wesleyan University and her M.B.A. from Stanford University. Laura and her husband Greg have a son Spencer ’14 and three children in third, fifth, and eighth grades at SFDS.
Topher Solmssen
Topher Solmssen is a director at RBC Capital Markets in San Francisco, where he manages institutional accounts with a focus on Media, Telecom and
Technology. Formerly, he was a founding partner of Evercore Institutional
Equities. Prior to Evercore, he worked at Credit Suisse and Allianz. Topher is also on the Board of Food Runners, an SF-based organization whose network of
volunteers picks up excess food and delivers it to those in need, and Outward Bound California, which seeks to change lives though challenge and discovery. This is his fourth year on the SFDS Board of Trustees. Topher graduated with a B.A. from Hamilton College. He and his wife Courtney Cooney have three children in fourth, fifth, and eighth grade at SFDS.
Thatcher Thompson
Thatcher Thompson is an equity investment analyst at Capital Group. He has 23 years of investment experience and has been with Capital Group for nine years. Prior to joining Capital Group, Thatcher was a managing director of equity research at CIBC World Markets, a vice president of equity research at Merrill Lynch, and he also worked at Dain Bosworth. Thatcher holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Gonzaga University. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. Thatcher and his wife Jill have a daughter Georgia ’13, a son, and a daughter attending fifth grade at SFDS.
Adriana Lopez Vermut
Adriana Lopez Vermut started her professional work in the world of start-ups and entrepreneurship. She worked at Viamericas, a money transfer start-up in research and business development and then as a research associate for SpaceVest, a
venture capital firm funding technology start-ups. In 2008, Adriana crossed over to the entrepreneurial side and launched Pica Pica Arepa Kitchen which is now
located in the Mission District. Adriana also has a strong interest in education and is a Board member for The Little School and Aim High, a non-profit organization working with middle-school children to prepare them for high school through intensive summer programs. She is a Trustee at A.C.T. (American Conservatory of Theater) as part of their Education Committee, which has a broad mission to
integrate theater in San Francisco schools as well as run one of the country’s elite MFA Theater programs. Adriana studied cultural anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Adriana and her husband Aaron have four children, two of whom are attending SFDS.
Molly Wood
Molly is an educator with deep experience in San Francisco and nationally. She began her teaching career at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in San Francisco, was a founding teacher at the Academy of the Pacific Rim in Boston, and went on to found KIPP Bayview Academy, a college preparatory charter school in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point community. She served as principal at KIPP Bayview for six years, and continues to be involved in the school and KIPP Bay Area Schools. She has also worked with Partners in School Innovation, Teach for America, Uncommon Schools/Teach Like a Champion, and is currently a
consultant to the Doris and Donald Fisher Fund. Molly is currently the Board President at The Little School. This is her fourth year serving as a trustee for
SFDS. Molly has a B.A., an M.A. in education, and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. She and her wife, Dagny, have a son attending kindergarten at SFDS and boy-girl twins in preschool.
