WHAT'S HAPPENING

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 of 17 people representing a range of professional expertise in education, economic development, law, business planning, accounting and fundraising.

Officers

Kathryn J. Williams (Chair) Kathryn Williams 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, Board Treasurer, Vice Chair and is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors for Child Advocates of Silicon Valley.

Howard Slayen (Vice Chair) 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.

Mike Byrd (Treasurer) 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.

Elaine Sulzberger (Secretary) is the 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.

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 vice president of Worldwide Consumer Support 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, and Ariba, Inc. Shelley is also a board member of the Palo Alto Area Chapter, of the American Red Cross, the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits (CEN), the Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT), and chair of a family foundation with the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. She also serves as a mentor with the Mountain View/Los Altos High Scholars Program.

Xavier Campos is 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 is starting his fourth year 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 Comée is President & CEO of Cast Iron Systems. Ken brings to this role 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. He has previously served on the Child Advocates board for 7 years, including Chair of the Board of Directors. He is also a board member of the California CASA Association, and serves on 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.

Jennifer A. Miller served as a Child Advocate 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.

James Otieno 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.

Jeff Richardson has almost 20 years experience in various Sales and Marketing capacities in the Silicon Valley, most recently as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Airtronics Metal Products, Inc. For the past few years, Jeff has been immensely involved in his most challenging job yet as a stay-at-home Dad for their first child, Kaitlyn. Born and raised in the Bay Area, Jeff is a graduate of Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose, and holds a Social Economics Degree from the University of Southern California.

Shelly Marie Sarkisian has been an active Child Advocate for 4 years. For over 10 years, Shelly's been active with other community organizations including the Saratoga Federated Church Women's Fellowship, City Team, and Humane Society. Shelly holds a degree in Japanese regional studies and was a professional photographer.