Leadership & Board

Board of Directors

John Lindfors, Board Chair

John Lindfors is the co-founder and managing partner of DST Global, a growth equity firm backing exceptional tech entrepreneurs. Before DST Global, John was the Partner in charge of the European Technology and Media Investment Banking department for Goldman Sachs. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1993 and worked in London and New York during his 17 years at the firm. John earned a master of science in economics from the Swedish School of Economics in Helsinki in 1993.

Mike Cannon-Brookes, Chair-Elect

Mike Cannon-Brookes is the co-founder and CEO of Atlassian, a collaboration software company. Mike co-founded the company with his university friend, Scott Farquhar, in 2002 from Australia, which has grown to over 12,000 staff globally, serving over 300,000 customers. Atlassian's mission is to unleash the potential of every team. Mike has been recognized as a leading entrepreneur by Ernst & Young, the Australian Financial Review, Forbes and the World Economic Forum. He is a global technology leader and a passionate philanthropist.

Yusuf Alireza

Yusuf moved to Dubai in August 2017 after being away from the Middle East for 30 years. Prior to Dubai, he lived and worked in all three major global Financial Centers. New York (5 years.), London (12 years.) & Hong Kong (9 years.).

Yusuf is the current founder, CIO and CEO of ARP Global Capital. From 2012 to 2016, Yusuf was the Chief Executive Officer of Noble Group, at the time, the largest Asian commodity trading firm and a Global Fortune 100 company.

Yusuf started his career at Goldman Sachs & Co where he spent 20 years working in their NY, London and HK offices. His last role was as Co-President of Goldman Sachs Asia and a member of the firm’s Global Management Committee. He began working at Goldman Sachs New York in 1992, transferring to the firm’s London office in 1997 and became the Head of EMEA Sales and Structuring efforts in 2003. He relocated to Hong Kong in 2008, where he managed the Asia Pacific Sales, Trading & Investing Businesses. In 2004, he made history by becoming the first Arab Partner in the firm's 140-year history.  He continued to break barriers in 2010 when he was elected to the firm's Global Management Committee, becoming the youngest and only person of Middle Eastern descent ever to serve on the committee.

Yusuf holds several prominent board positions. He is Vice Chairman of the National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) and is Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board, the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB), the Global Board of Room to Read, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and he chairs the Audit Committee of the Bahrain Ship Repairing & Engineering Company (BASREC).

Yusuf moved to the US to attend university in 1988. He received a joint Master’s and Bachelor’s degree from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Services at Georgetown University in 1992. He completed his Bachelor’s studies in International Economics and Econometrics, pursuing a Master’s degree in Arab Studies and International Relations and Affairs.

Andrew Balls

Andrew Balls is PIMCO's chief investment officer for global fixed income. Based in London, he oversees PIMCO’s European, Asia-Pacific, emerging markets and global investment teams. He manages global portfolios and is a member of PIMCO’s investment committee. Before joining PIMCO in 2006 he was an economics correspondent and columnist for the Financial Times in London, New York and Washington, DC. He holds a bachelor's degree from Oxford, a master's degree from Harvard and was a lecturer in economics at Keble College, Oxford.

Sabine Chalmers

Sabine Chalmers is general counsel of BT Group Plc, formerly known as British Telecom. Previously, she served as chief legal and corporate affairs officer and secretary to the board of directors at Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI). She is qualified as a solicitor in England and is a member of the New York State Bar. Sabine is a member of the board of directors of ABI and also serves on several professional councils and not-for-profit boards, including the Royal National Theatre. Sabine’s education reflects her global background. She spent her formative years as a student in the Philippines at the International School Manila, went on to graduate from London School of Economics and received her solicitors’ qualification at London’s College of Law.

Stanley Hainsworth

While working on his follicular iconoclasm, along the way Stanley mastered the art of brand storycraft while serving as a creative lead at three of the great brands of our time: Nike, Lego and Starbucks. He is now the founder and chief creative officer of Tether, a storytelling juggernaut creating branding, design and advertising for a diverse range of clients such as Google, BMW Motorrad, Pepsi, Under Armour, Microsoft, Amazon, Gatorade and many others. And he fills up his spare time with writing books and posts, teaching classes and speaking about wise branding things and stuff.

Lydie Hudson

Lydie B. Hudson is co-founder and president of Citation Capital. With a career spanning more than 20 years in financial services, Lydie previously served on the executive board at Credit Suisse. Lydie also founded the CS Women’s Financial Forum, a global convention of female experts across financial services. She was named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2017 and an Aspen Finance Fellow and member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network in 2021. Lydie earned a bachelor of arts in international politics and economics from Middlebury College and a master of business administration from the Harvard Business School. A Midwest native, she resides in Greenwich, Conneticut, having recently moved back to the United States from Switzerland.

Carl Huttenlocher

Carl Huttenlocher is the managing partner and chief investment officer of Myriad Asset Management, a hedge fund based in South Florida. Carl manages the Myriad Macro Fund (MMF), a global discretionary macro strategy, which launched in 2023. Prior to launching MMF, Carl managed the Myriad Opportunities Fund from 2011 to 2022, which was an Asia-focused multi-strategy fund managed from Hong Kong. Before founding Myriad in 2011, Carl managed the Highbridge Asia Opportunities (HAO) Fund. Carl was also a member of the global investment committee of Highbridge. Before joining Highbridge in 2002, Carl was the founder and CEO of Intelligent Markets a financial technology company based in San Francisco. Before Intelligent Markets, Carl was a portfolio manager for convertibles and equities at Long Term Capital Management and a convertible bond trader at Citadel Investment Group. Carl is a member of the Society of Fellows at the Aspen Institute and holds a bachelor of science in mathematics from the Massachusetts Insitute of Technology. 

Sonny Kalsi

Sonny Kalsi is the Co-Chief Executive Officer of BGO and is based in Miami, Florida. BGO is a leading, global real estate investment management advisor and a globally recognized provider of real estate services with approximately $82 billion of assets under management. BGO has 27 offices worldwide and over 1,300 employees. BGO manages real estate debt, and real estate assets on behalf of clients in primary, secondary and co-investment markets. Sonny has oversight responsibility for BGO's global businesses and is a senior member of the Firm's global Investment Committees. In addition, Sonny serves as the President and CEO of the parent company of BGO, SLC Management, where he helps to oversee the strategic direction and capital relationships of the overall platform.

Sonny was a co-founder of GreenOak Real Estate in 2010 and, together with the GreenOak Real Estate team, grew the business organically to $12 billion of assets under management in 10 countries with over 100 employees, prior to its 2019 merger with Bentall Kennedy. Before co-founding GreenOak Real Estate, Sonny was the Global Co-Head of Morgan Stanley’s Real Estate Investing (MSREI) business and President of the Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds until 2009. At its peak, the MSREI platform had approximately $100 billion of assets under management in 33 countries.

Sonny is a graduate of Georgetown University and continues to be very involved with the school in advancing academic initiatives. He has been cited by Private Equity Real Estate magazine as one of the “30 Most Influential” people in private equity real estate globally. Sonny is on the board of several organizations including Georgetown University, Teaching Matters, Room to Read, Asia Society and the Hirshhorn Museum.

Dr. Elizabeth M. King

Elizabeth is non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, managing editor of the Journal of Development Effectiveness and adjunct professor of Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and the School of Economics, University of the Philippines. She is also on the boards of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and Education Commission-Asia; technical adviser to Echidna Giving, UNICEF Inocenti Center, the Office of Population Studies (Philippines) and the Center for Transmigration and Social Inclusion of Seoul National University; and member of the judging panel of the Yidan Prize Foundation. She was the World Bank's senior spokesperson and professional head for global policy and strategic issues related to education and human development, and acting vice-president for human development sectors. She has published journal articles, books and book chapters on topics related to human capital, labor markets, the care economy and gender issues in development. She engaged in operations and advisory work on economic and education issues in several historically low-income countries. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.

Tomoya Masanao

Tomoya Masanao is a managing director of PIMCO. Based in Tokyo, he is co-head of Asia-Pacific portfolio management and co-head of Japan office. Tomoya co-oversees the portfolio management teams in the region and manages clients’ assets. His interest in philanthropic activities grew as he traveled in Asia. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2001 in the Newport Beach office in California, Tomoya was an executive director and senior portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs Asset Management in London. He was also with The Sumitomo Bank in Osaka, Tokyo and London. He holds a master of business administration from Boston University, and a master's degree and an undergraduate degree, both in engineering, from Osaka University.

Alan Miyasaki

Alan Miyasaki is a Senior Managing Director in the Real Estate Group and the Head of Real Estate Asia Acquisitions. Mr. Miyasaki is based in Singapore and is responsible for the day-to-day management of the Real Estate group’s investment activities in Asia.

Since joining Blackstone in 2001, Mr. Miyasaki has been involved in a variety of real estate transactions in both the United States and Asia. Since 2007, Mr. Miyasaki has played a key role in building Blackstone’s Real Estate business in Asia including executing investments in Greater China, India, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Miyasaki was with Starwood Capital Group, where he worked in acquisitions. Mr. Miyasaki received a BS in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated cum laude. He currently serves on the boards of Crown Resorts Ltd and the Wharton Alumni Executive Board

Dr. Geetha Murali

Dr. Geetha Murali is the chief executive officer of Room to Read, a leading international organization that transforms the lives of millions of children through education. She has been a driving force behind Room to Read’s expanded presence in 24 countries — benefiting more than 39 million children to date. 

Geetha joined Room to Read in 2009 and has more than 25 years of diverse experience across the corporate and non-profit sectors. Geetha’s commitment to literacy and gender equality has been recognized by former first lady of the United States Michelle Obama as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She has been recognized by WIRED as a leader who will shape the next 25 years and named a CNBC Changemaker.

Geetha received her master’s degree in biostatistics from UNC Chapel Hill and her master’s and doctorate degrees in South Asian politics from UC Berkeley.

Stasia Obremskey

Stasia Obremskey is the managing director of RH Capital, an impact venture capital fund of Rhia Ventures, where she is responsible for investing in innovations in women’s reproductive health. She joined RH Capital at its founding in 2018 after more than 25 years of experience as an interim CFO for non-profit organizations and start-up companies and an impact investor and philanthropist in women’s reproductive health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from the University of Notre Dame and a master of business administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Business. She has extensive experience as a member of several nonprofit boards where she has held many leadership positions. Stasia is a founding member of The Maverick Collective, an initiative of PSI. As the proud mother of three young adults, she is working with scientists and entrepreneurs to find the next generation of hormone-free contraceptives to meet their sexual health needs.

Benjamin Piper

Dr. Benjamin Piper is director, global education program, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Based in the foundation’s Nairobi office, Benjamin supports grantees that work to improve foundational literacy and numeracy in low- and middle-income countries.

Before joining the foundation, Benjamin was the senior director for Africa education for RTI International, where he provided support to large-scale education projects across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Earlier, he was the chief of party for the Kenyan national literacy program Tusome, a set of randomized controlled trials in Kenya called PRIMR, and Kenya’s National Tablets Programme. He was the principal investigator for Learning at Scale, a multi-country study of highly effective large-scale education programs and for an external evaluation of programs aimed at increasing playful pedagogy at large scale funded by the Lego Foundation. He was also the principal investigator for Science of Teaching, an effort funded by the Gates Foundation to increase knowledge about the technical details of how to improve pedagogy at large scale.

Benjamin has a doctorate in international education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and master’s degrees in international education policy and school leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Furman University, respectively. He has lived in East Africa since 2007 and currently resides in Nairobi.

Najoh Tita-Reid

As chief brand and experience officer, Mars Petcare, Najoh is responsible for brand, experience, digitalization and technology to drive global business transformation. She joined Mars from Logitech where she was their global CMO responsible for Logitech’s worldwide marketing, brand equity, creative, branded and direct-to-consumer ecommerce sites, and marketing transformation in support of all categories and brands. Prior to her current role, Najoh was global commercial marketing head and global marketing reinvention leader at Logitech, where she designed and implemented the company’s global commercial marketing organization. She joined Logitech from Hero AG, where she was global CMO and a member of the executive board. Previously, she held senior roles at Bayer, Merck, GlobalHue and P&G.

Throughout her career, Najoh has been a leader in empowering and promoting success amongst multicultural communities. Most recently, she has co-founded the Black Executive CMO Alliance — a group that aims to provide a space for Black marketing C-Suite executives to share, learn, elevate and pay it forward to create opportunity, access and equality for the current and next generation of Black marketing leaders.

Najoh holds a master of business administration from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a bachelor of arts in English from Spelman College. She has also completed a number of leadership and design programs from schools including IMD, Simmons University, the Stanford School of Design and the UK’s CBI.

Vicky Tsai

Vicky Tsai is the Founder of Tatcha, a global luxury skincare brand founded in 2009. Every Tatcha purchase supports children's education through the brand's Beautiful Faces, Beautiful Futures Program, established in 2014 in partnership with Room to Read. To date, the program has funded more than 10 million days of school for girls in Africa and Southeast Asia and funded Room to Read’s U.S. literary initiative to provide diverse books to underserved communities.

Vicky's work at Tatcha has earned her recognition as a Marie Claire Changemaker (2022), Inc Magazine’s 100 Top Female Founders List (2021), the WWD Beauty Inc Founder’s Award (2019), InStyle Magazine’s “Badass 50 Women” List (2018), and the No.2 fastest-growing privately held company in America led by a woman on the Inc 5000 list (2015). She holds a bachelor of arts in economics from Wellesley College and a master of business administration from Harvard Business School.

Peter Warwick

Peter Warwick is President and CEO of Scholastic Inc, the children’s and educational publisher, based in New York. He was born in the UK and completed a doctorate in African history, before he began his career with Pearson, publishing educational and academic books for and about Africa. He joined Thomson Reuters in 1998 and managed the company’s legal and tax businesses in Asia Pacific, and was based in Sydney, Australia. He moved to New York in 2000 and managed businesses for the company in both New York and Minneapolis-St Paul, as well as serving as Chief People Officer. He is a past Chair of the Queens Museum in New York, Chair of the Olana Partnership in upstate New York, President of the Thomson Reuters Foundation in the United States, and a member of the Frankfurt Book Fair Advisory Board.

Susan Wojcicki (†)

Susan was a tech executive with over 30 years of experience in the industry. As the former CEO of YouTube, she oversaw YouTube's content and business operations, engineering and product development. Prior to joining YouTube in February 2014, Susan was senior vice president of advertising & commerce at Google, where she oversaw the design and engineering of AdWords, AdSense, DoubleClick and Google Analytics. She joined Google in 1999 as the company's first marketing manager and led the initial development of several key consumer products including Google Images and Google Books. Susan graduated with honors from Harvard University, holds a master's in economics from UC Santa Cruz and an MBA from UCLA. In 2015, Susan was named to Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. She served on the board of directors for Salesforce and Waymo and as an advisor at YouTube and Google.

Emeritus Board

John Ridding: Chair

John Ridding is the chief executive officer of the Financial Times and FT.com. He was formerly editor and publisher of the Financial Times, Asia, as well as chairman of Pearson in Asia. John led the launch of the Asia edition of the FT in 2003. It won the award for the best newspaper from the Society of Publishers in Asia in its launch year and received top awards for business reporting, scoops and newspaper design at the same ceremony in 2006. He graduated from Oxford University with a first-class honors degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

Christopher S. Beer

Christopher Beer is the managing member of Ironmark Law Group, PLLC, a firm providing strategic business and intellectual property services to individuals, companies and other lawyers both in the U.S. and worldwide. Chris served on the Room to Read Board of Directors from 2004 to 2013.

Craig Bruya

Craig Bruya is retired from Microsoft Corporation, most recently as chief financial officer of Microsoft Business Solutions. During a three-year sabbatical, he taught accounting and management classes to master of business administration students at Seattle University and the University of Washington. Prior to this, he spent 12 years at Microsoft in executive finance positions primarily in Microsoft International as well as nine years with the audit division of Arthur Andersen & Company in Seattle, Brussels, Belgium and Athens, Greece.

Mary Byron

Mary Byron is currently the owner of Cloud Nine Quilts based in Montana. Mary is retired from Goldman Sachs, most recently as the global head of corporate technology including Finance, Risk, Operations and Human Resources at Goldman Sachs. She served on the Technology Division Executive, Operating and Risk Committees. Prior to this role, Mary was based in Tokyo as CIO for Asia Pacific businesses and co-chair of the Asia Pacific Diversity Committee. She joined Goldman Sachs in 1989 and has held various roles within technology, including managing the firm’s global networks and computing infrastructure. Mary was named managing director in 1999 and partner in 2006. She serves on the board of directors for the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and the Auburn Theological Seminary. Mary earned her bachelor’s degree from Marquette University in 1986.

Dr. Luis Crouch

Dr. Luis Crouch is senior economist emeritus in RTI’s International Development Group and is a recognized international leader in providing high-level advice to governments involved in complex educational systems change. In this role, Luis leads work in key strategic areas, addressing important challenges in global health and youth issues, and in particular, measurement and finance issues regarding these two sectors. Prior to this, Luis was a coordinator for the Global Good Practice group with the Global Partnership for Education. Luis has worked on all aspects of policy analysis research and implementation, from field surveys to quantitative and qualitative analysis to policy dialogue presentations. Luis has experience in many historically low-income countries. In particular, he was a high-level technical advisor to the governments of South Africa in the period after the end of apartheid and Egypt during the current drive to decentralization. Luis received a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a master’s degree and doctorate in agricultural economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Scott Kapnick

Scott is chief executive officer of HPS Investment Partners, LLC (“HPS”), which he founded in 2007. HPS is a leading global investment platform with a focus on non-investment grade credit and has over $114bn of assets under management. HPS has 201 investment professionals and over 670 employees globally and is headquartered in New York with 14 additional offices worldwide. HPS was originally formed as a unit of Highbridge Capital Management, LLC, a subsidiary of J.P. Morgan Asset Management. In March 2016, the principals of HPS acquired the firm from J.P. Morgan, which retained Highbridge and the hedge fund strategies. From 2013–2016, Scott also served as chief executive officer and chairman of the executive committee of Highbridge Capital Management.

Before founding HPS, Scott was a management committee member, partner and co-head of global investment banking at Goldman Sachs, positions he held from 2001 to 2006. He also served as co-chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs International from 2005 to 2006 and spent 12 of his 21 years at the firm in Europe (London and Frankfurt). Scott was named Partner in 1994. He is a graduate of Williams College and holds a combined juris doctorate and master's in business administration from the University of Chicago. Mr. Kapnick also studied at the London School of Economics & Political Science. Mr. Kapnick is a member of the council on foreign relations and serves on the board of directors of the Hospital for Special Surgery.

Jerry del Missier

Jerry founded Copper Street Capital in July 2015. He is responsible for overseeing all investment activities within the firm and setting the firm’s strategic direction. He has extensive experience in the financial services industry including business acquisition, growth, restructuring and reengineering. Before founding Copper Street, Jerry was co-chief executive officer of Barclays Corporate & Investment Bank and subsequently, chief operating officer for Barclays Bank Plc (1997–2012). During his time at Barclays he held various executive leadership positions and played a key leadership role in the acquisition and integration of Lehman Brothers and the post-crisis restructuring of the bank.

Previously, Jerry was a senior managing director of derivative products for Bankers Trust (1988–1997). He started his career at Scotiabank (1987–1988) in Toronto. Jerry holds a master of business administration from Queens University (1987) and a bachelor of science in chemical engineering from Queens University (1985). 

Erin Ganju

Erin Ganju is a co-founder, former CEO, and former COO of Room to Read. From the early start-up days, Erin was instrumental in the design and implementation of the organization’s scalable, replicable model for improving the quality of education around the world. In 2009, Erin became chief executive officer of Room to Read. As CEO, Erin oversaw Room to Read’s global operations across 15 countries; a technical assistance unit called Room to Read Accelerator; fundraising teams in North America, Europe, Australia and the Asia Pacific region; and a worldwide staff of more than 1,500 employees. Erin has been selected as one of the World Economic Forum’s Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurs for 2014 and in 2012 was one of Fast Company’s Extraordinary Women.

Before founding Room to Read, Erin worked at Unilever, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and a couple of technology start-ups. She has spent extensive time working and living in Asia, where she saw firsthand the need to enhance historically low-income countries’ educational systems. Erin holds a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree in international relations and economics from The Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.

Peter T. Grauer

Peter is chairman of Bloomberg L.P., the global financial media company. He has been a member of the Bloomberg Board since October 1996 and was named Chairman of the Board in March 2001 succeeding Michael R. Bloomberg. Peter joined Bloomberg full-time in his executive capacities in March 2002.

Prior to this, he was a managing director of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) from 1992 to 2000 when DLJ was acquired by Credit Suisse First Boston and then managing director and senior partner of CSFB Private Equity until March 2002. Peter is the president of the board of trustees of the Inner City Scholarship Fund in New York City and a member of the Partnership for Inner City Education board of directors. He serves as a member of the board of trustees of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the WNET Group. He is founding Chairman of the U.S. 30% Club. Peter is a member of the board of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, chairman of the College Advising Corps and a trustee of the Economic Club of New York.

Tim Koogle

Tim is a private venture capitalist, entrepreneur and business leader, and philanthropist. He has had a long career in starting, running and growing businesses of scale. From 1995 to 2001 he served as Yahoo! founding chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors. Currently, Tim is on the board of a number of private early-stage companies in which he is a venture capital investor. With his wife, Pam Scott, he co-directs the Koogle Foundation, which has been principally focused on the education of at-risk youth, and issues affecting under-resourced women and girls worldwide. In his venture capital role, he has principally focused on impact investing in start-up and early-stage private companies in naturally sourced, non-toxic and sustainable consumer products. He was a founding investor, board member and chairman of Method Home, (now a profitable $1B revenue company), and founding investor, board member and chairman of Olly, (now a profitable $300M+ revenue company). Additionally, among his current investor and board responsibilities are: Ripple Foods (a plant-based dairy alternatives company), True Botanicals (a naturally derived skin care and health company), Cedaron Medical, Unilever H&W (which purchased Olly in 2019), Cadence Health (a commercial products company focused on removing barriers to contraception for under-resourced women and girls where he is also Chairman) and several other companies. In his "spare time," as founder and CEO of Serendipity Land Holdings, he is developing an environmentally sensitive and low-density resort and residential community with Auberge Resorts, Inc. on land he owns on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. He is also restoring vintage sports and racing cars, a life-long passion! Tim holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia and a master of science and engineering from Stanford University. 

Alastair Mactaggart

Alastair Mactaggart was previously president of Emerald Fund Inc., a San Francisco residential real estate developer. Between 1998 and 2012 Emerald developed in excess of US$2 billion of real estate. Subsequently, Alastair founded Californians for Consumer Privacy, and in 2018 sponsored a statewide ballot measure which resulted in the passage of the California Consumer Privacy Act, at the time the most protective consumer privacy law in the country.  In 2020 he sponsored another statewide ballot measure, and over 9.3 million Californians joined him in voting to pass the California Privacy Rights Act, which provides 1 in 8 Americans with among the strongest consumer privacy protections globally.  Alastair received a BA from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He lives in Alameda County, California with his family. Alastair served on Room to Read’s Board of Directors from 2005 to 2009. 

Kim Anstatt Morton 

Kim worked almost a decade on Wall Street as an equity research analyst at UBS and Hambrecht and Quist in New York City. She later joined Montgomery Securities in San Francisco where she covered emerging growth and big cap biotech companies. Kim is passionate about literacy, education and the arts. She enthusiastically serves as Board Chair for Girl Rising, a global movement for girls' education through media, film and social action campaigns (and a partner of Room to Read). She is active with SFMOMA’s Director’s Circle Committee, Contemporaries Committee and Media Acquisitions. She is also an active ambassador for For-Site. Kim has worked with the Department of Health and Human Services in San Francisco with abused and neglected children and has tutored a special literacy program youth. She holds a bachelor of arts from Dartmouth College and a fine art graduate painting degree from the San Francisco Art Institute. Kim travels extensively in historically low-income communities and lives in San Francisco and Vermont with her husband Ian and son Baker. 

Dr. Fernando Reimers

Fernando Reimers is the Ford Foundation Professor of the Practice of International Education and Director of the Global Education Innovation Initiative at Harvard University. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Education and of the International Academy of Education.

An expert in the field of Global Education, his research and teaching focus on understanding how to educate children and youth so they can thrive in the 21st century. He was a member of UNESCOs Commission on the Futures of Education which wrote the report ‘Reimagining Our Futures Together. A New Social Contract for Education’. He has developed curriculum aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals which is in use in many schools throughout the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic he led numerous comparative studies examining the educational consequences of the pandemic and identifying options to sustain educational opportunity and to build back better.

He directs the Global Education Innovation Initiative, a cross-country research and practice collaborative focusing on education for the 21st century. He has written or edited 53 books and over 100 articles and chapters, including Schools and Society During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Education to Build Back Better, Primary and Secondary Education during COVID-19, and University and School collaborations during a pandemic. He recently edited a special issue focused on Education and the New Challenges of Democracy. He has also authored five children’s books focused on inclusive values and environmental sustainability.

Muneer A. Satter

Muneer manages Satter Investment Management (SIM), a Chicago-based private investment firm, and the Satter Foundation, a private family foundation. SIM has significant investments in several life sciences and medical technology companies. Muneer retired in 2012 after 16 years as a partner at Goldman Sachs in the Merchant Banking Division. As global head of Goldman Sachs Mezzanine Group, Muneer raised and managed more than $30 billion of investments. He is vice chairman of the board of the Goldman Sachs Foundation and is on the board of the Nature Conservancy, where he is chairman of the finance committee. Muneer received a bachelor of arts from Northwestern University and a juris doctorate/master of business administration from Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. Muneer served on the Room to Read Board of Directors from 2004 to 2010 and was co-chair from 2005 to 2008.

Frank van Veenendaal

Frank retired from Salesforce in 2015 after almost 14 years with the company and was instrumental in growing Salesforce from $5M to $5B+. He served as president and executive vice chairman for three years and held a number of senior executive positions with the company during his tenure. He has over 30 years of technology sales and executive management experience and previously held various sales and sales management positions for companies such as Actuate, Interleaf, Integrated Solutions, Pyramid and Harris Corporation. He also serves on the board of directors of Coupa, Onfido and ServiceMax.

Hilary Valentine

Hilary is a board member of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health and a member of Part the Cloud whose mission is to fund Alzheimer’s research with the highest probability of slowing, stopping or ultimately curing Alzheimer’s disease. Hilary serves on the board of directors of the Valentine Family Foundation and the Canary Foundation. She also serves on the emeritus board of Breast Cancer Connections. The Valentine Family Foundation provided the initial multi-year seed funding for Room to Read's Girls' Education Program. Hilary served on the Room to Read board of directors from 2003 to 2012 and was co-chair of the board of directors from 2005 to 2008 and was chair of the board of directors from 2008 to 2010. Hilary graduated with a bachelor's in psychology from St. Lawrence University.

John Wood

John Wood is the founder and CEO of U-Go, a new start-up that is helping thousands of ambitious and promising young women in low-income countries to pursue tertiary education by providing financial scholarships. Prior to U-Go, John founded Room to Read and spent eight years as an executive at Microsoft. John serves on the board of Asia Partners, a Singapore-based private equity firm focused on emerging technology firms in the ASEAN region, and Green Monday Holdings, a Hong Kong-based company focused on plant-based proteins. He also leads the Asia strategy for Concentric Equity Partners, a $2.5 billion family office based in Chicago. John earned his master's in business administration at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management of Northwestern University, a bachelor’s degree in finance magna cum laude from the University of Colorado, and has received four honorary Ph.D.s from schools including McGill University and the University of San Francisco. He has served on the advisory board of the Clinton Global Initiative, is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, was selected as the second Draper Richards Fellow, and was part of the inaugural class of Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. On behalf of Room to Read, he received the World Children’s Prize from Queen Silvia of Sweden in 2016.