Over 200 needy children are on out wait list for an Advocate
Board of Directors
Our board, staff and volunteer committees spearhead our efforts to provide stability and hope to abused and neglected children in Santa Clara County.
We have a diverse, active board representing a range of professional expertise in education, economic development, law, business planning, accounting and fundraising.
Officers
Elaine Sulzberger (Chair) is the former controller of the North American Sales Organization at NXP Semiconductors. With more than 25 years of experience in high-tech finance, her expertise includes budgeting, analysis, revenue recognition, compensation, and restructuring. For the last three years, Elaine has also been an Advocate for a teenage girl. Her other volunteer activities include fundraising to fight breast cancer.
James Otieno (Vice Chair) has over 20 years of experience in Compensation, Benefits, and Human Resources. He recently retired from Hewlett-Packard where he was the Vice President of Executive Compensation and Services with responsibility for the worldwide management, design, development and implementation of Executive Compensation. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, a member of the Conference Board Council on Executive Compensation, and serves on the board of World at Work.
Howard Slayen (Treasurer) has over 35 years of experience in tax, merger and acquisition, and financial advisory services. He was a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers for 23 years, prior to being CFO of a number of start-up enterprises. He is both a CPA (inactive) and an attorney (inactive). He now spends his time as a professional board member for a variety of nonprofit, and publicly and privately held corporations.
Kathryn J. Williams (Secretary) has been a longtime Advocate for women and children. She is a well-known lecturer on domestic violence education and prevention and has spoken regularly to police officers, healthcare professionals, cosmetologists and students at numerous colleges and universities since 1994. Additionally, she has developed and implemented a state-mandated domestic violence training sequence for Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA). Kathryn has served as a Child Advocate since 1997, Chair, Vice Chair, and Treasurer and is currently the Secretary of the Board of Directors for Child Advocates of Silicon Valley.
Vickie Scott Grove (Executive Director) is responsible for strategic direction, organizational management, fundraising, Board relations, program development and supervision of 23 staff and 450 volunteers. She has been an active Education Advocate since 2006. Vickie is also the Director of Development and oversees all aspects of fund development, public relations and communications. She has more than 28 years of finance, fundraising and nonprofit management consulting experience.
Directors
Lenny Alugas is senior vice president of Worldwide eCommerce at Symantec Corporation. He has over 25 years of experience in high-technology companies including several senior level management positions at Multitude, Excite@Home and Hewlett-Packard. Lenny is originally from New Orleans, Louisiana and holds a degree in Physics and Mechanical engineering.
Shelley Brown is a retired human resources executive with more than 25 years of experience in high-tech companies including Hewlett-Packard, Aspect Communications, Siebel Systems and Ariba, Inc. In addition to serving on the board of Child Advocates, Shelley is a board member for the American Red Cross – Silicon Valley Chapter, the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits (CEN), the Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT), and she chairs a family foundation board with the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Stanford University School of Education. She has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA.
Mike Byrd is a certified public accountant with more than 20 years of sales and marketing experience at high-tech companies, such as Ernst & Young and Maxim Integrated Products. Most recently, he was president and COO of Brocade Communications, responsible for operations, sales, services, and marketing.
Xavier Campos is Policy Aide to Santa Clara County Supervisor, George Shirakawa responsible for Children, Seniors and Families Committee, Fairgrounds Planning, Social Services, Constituent Services, and Community Outreach. Xavier is the former Chief Operating Officer of the Mexican American Community Services Agency (MACSA). He also serves on the Board for the Greater San Jose After School All-Stars and is the current chair of the Silicon Valley Latino Democratic Forum, an affiliate of the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee. Xavier has also served four years as an appointed member of the San Jose Planning Commission.
Shirley Cantu is a retired Deputy Chief Probation Officer with 32 years of service. As a volunteer Shirley Cantu has been actively involved with programs that provide services to youth in our community. This includes volunteering with Eastfield Ming Quong, The United Way of Silicon Valley, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of the Bay Area. In 2006, she was the recipient of the Crystal Bowl Award presented by the Junior League of San Jose at their 37th annual Volunteer Recognition Luncheon.
Lisa Norcia Cheskin has over 20 years of experience working in the medical device industry and currently holds the position of Vice-President, Clinical Affairs at BioForm Medical Inc., a San Mateo-based company. Prior to joining the Child Advocates board, Lisa has volunteered with other nonprofit organizations including Special Olympics of Northern California, English as a Second Language Program, and the American Red Cross. Lisa holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a Masters of Public Health from Boston University.
Ken Comee is President & CEO of Cast Iron Systems. Ken has over 20 years of sales and operational expertise driving significant revenue growth at fast-paced technology companies. Before Cast Iron, Ken spent over four years at CollabNet building the sales organization. Prior to joining CollabNet, Ken served as senior Vice President of North American Sales for Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC). Ken also spent over 10 years at Amdahl Corporation, where he held various executive sales management and operations positions in both Europe and the United States. Ken holds a B.S. degree in Finance from Santa Clara University and an MBA in Strategy from the London Business School.
Terence Fox is President of M.E. Fox & Company; a family owned and operated beer and beverage distributorship. He has over 15 years of sales and marketing experience having worked as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for M.E. Fox & Company and Sales Manager for the Gordon Biersch Brewing Company. Terence played an integral role in starting up Gordon Biersch's sales organization and managing growth within their brewery operations. He is a native of Silicon Valley and received a BA degree in Political Science from the University of San Diego.
Kevin Gardner is a marketing consultant with 25 years of experience in product marketing and marketing communications in semiconductors, networking and computing services. He was a Child Advocate volunteer for two teenage boys and has served on the Child Advocates board for ten years, including two years as it Chair. Kevin is also Board President of the California CASA Association, and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Outlet Program in Mountain View.
Ram Gupta brings over 20 years of strategy and execution expertise at fast-paced global technology companies, including PeopleSoft, WebMD, Silicon Graphics, IBM and Tata Consultancy Services. Previously, Ram was the CEO of Cast Iron Systems where he grew the customer base and revenue by over 300% and it became the largest vendor of application integration appliances. Ram has an MS in Computer Science from UMass and graduated with Honors from BITS Pilani, India. He holds several patents. Ram is board chair of Cast Iron Systems and Sourceforge and serves on the boards of Accruent, Compiere, Plateau Systems, S1 Corporation, and Yodlee.
Andre Luu has more than 25 years experience in banking and the financial services industry. Prior to returning Union Bank of California in 2007, he was a Senior Private Banker at Wells Fargo PCS, where he provided comprehensive wealth management services to high net worth individuals and their families. Previously, he spent ten years with large global financial institutions in Singapore and Hong Kong where he assisted multinational companies with their global financing needs. Andre is fluent in French, Cantonese, Mandarin and is conversant in Vietnamese. Andre has an MBA from the University of Southern California in addition to a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. He holds a series 7 and 63 NASD licenses and State of California Life and Health license.
Mark MacLennan is president of SVB Capital, responsible for the company's significant network of relationships with venture capitalists and investment funds. MacLennan was previously head of SVB's Global Financial Services. Prior to joining SVB Financial Group, MacLennan was a managing director of the Private Equity Group at Century Capital Management, Inc. in Boston, where he managed a portfolio of private equity investments and led fundraising for the company's latest private equity fund. During his 21 years at BankBoston, MacLennan held a variety of management and leadership positions, including serving on the Board of Directors and Investment Committee of BancBoston Capital, one of the largest and most diversified of bank-oriented investors. During his tenure, MacLennan also had responsibility for the Global, Multinational and Specialized Lending businesses, which included managing the global High Technology lending area for several years.
Jennifer A. Miller served as a Child Advocate volunteer from September 2005 through the adoption of her advocate child in November 2008. After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1986, she practiced law as a litigation attorney for seven years in Los Angeles. She then moved to London, England, where she studied archaeology and developed a specialty in dating clay tobacco pipes. Since returning to California in 2000, she has raised three children and served as a volunteer in local schools and other organizations. She holds a degree in English from Michigan State University, and in her free time she is a writer.
Dana Nunn is an independent marketing consultant with more than 15 years of experience in marketing and business strategy. She has worked with a wide range of technology companies, academic institutions, and venture capital firms, and is passionate about merging her business expertise with the non-profit sector serving at risk youth. She holds a PhD in Marketing from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Sridhar Ramanathan is General Partner and co-founder of Aventi Group, a consulting firm that specializes in accelerating revenue for technology companies. Sridhar is a 20-year veteran of enterprise technology companies with a long tenure at Hewlett-Packard where his last role was the Marketing executive and services portfolio manager for HP's Managed Services business. Sridhar holds a BS Engineering Physics from U.C. Berkeley and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. He and his wife, Gina, have four children and live in Livermore, California.
Bill Weisinger has more than 20 years of marketing, sales and business development experience in high technology industries, with over 15 of those years in semiconductor and communication businesses. He founded a non-profit industry association, Road to 100G Alliance, and served as its president and chairman. Bill has also served on the board of directors of the Sunnyvale Girls Softball League, a non-profit youth sports organization established to educate and develop physical fitness, sportsmanship, and character through the game of softball for youth ages 5 to 16 years old. Bill holds an MBA from the University of Baltimore and a BSME from the University of Rochester.
Kelly Young is the General Manager & Vice President of Sales for Peter Paul Winery. Previously, Kelly was a senior executive at Bay Networks, 3 Com, U.S. Robotics, and Redback Networks. At Redback, Kelly was part of the initial start up team that took Redback to the 5th most successful IPO in NASDAQ history, as the Director of Channels and Distribution. Having grown up in an agricultural and wine-making family, in 1997 Kelly jumped at the opportunity to blend his affinity for fine wines with his business sense to take the Peter Paul Wine portfolio to a new level. He graduated from West Valley College with a degree in Business and Economics and continued his education with courses in Corporate and International Communications from MIT. Kelly also holds various technical certifications in the networking industry.