Chris, a San Francisco native, muddled his way through Cantonese and Mandarin before embracing and studying Chinese, Chinese history and philosophy, and Asian-American studies as an undergraduate at Brown University. After college, Chris grappled with the opportunities and challenges of urban redevelopment, civic engagement, and municipal governance as a legislative aide to members of the Oakland City Council before obtaining a Master in Public Affairs degree (Princeton University) and a Juris Doctor (Columbia Law School). After law school, Chris practiced land use and environmental law at an international law firm, where he specialized in mixed-use development projects and became acquainted with the CAIS community while providing legal counsel on the 888 Campus project. Impressed by CAIS’ vision and community, Chris and Joyce were grateful for the opportunity to join the CAIS family when their first child entered Pre-K at CAIS. Joyce is a former room parent and Chris served on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force before joining the Board. As a deputy city attorney for the City and County of San Francisco, Chris drafts legislation, litigates on the City’s behalf, and advises a myriad of City departments. Chris and Joyce are the joyful parents of two CAIS Lower School students.

Chris serves on the following Board committees: Executive, Committee on Trustees, Facilities, and 19th Avenue Campus Sub-Committee. 

Board Secretary Alda Leu Dennis is a venture capital investor at Initialized Capital. She was born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas and moved to the Bay Area in high school.

Alda began her career as a financial analyst at The Walt Disney Company. Then, she practiced as an attorney as a litigator at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, and in-house counsel at Clarium Capital and Founders Fund. After that, Alda moved on to be COO of a start-up called Airtime. Thereafter, she served as managing director of 137 Ventures, a later-stage venture firm. She graduated from Stanford with degrees in economics and political science, and a JD from UCLA.

Alda and her husband, Hilary, are happy CAIS parents. They have a son and daughter who are Class of 2025 and a daughter who is Class of 2028.

Alda serves on the Executive Committee and Advancement Committee and is chair of the Committee on Trustees.

Board Treasurer John Wang has two children, a son in the Class of 2026 and a younger daughter. His wife Jennifer is a very active member of the CAIS community. John grew up on the East Coast and moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA where he received a B.S. in Applied Mathematics. He continued his education in Los Angeles, attending Southwestern Law School for his J.D. John is currently a partner at the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, where he chairs the higher education financing group and is a member of the public finance department. He also enjoys working on financings with cultural institutions, solid waste disposal companies and developers, energy developers and public utilities. While John is a resident in the San Francisco office, he also works with clients in Hawaii, Guam, Nevada and Texas. John enjoys spending time mentoring more junior attorneys at the firm. In his spare time, John enjoys spending time with his family and rooting for the UCLA Bruins, the New York Yankees and the Oakland Raiders.

John serves on the Executive Committee, Audit and Risk Management Committee, and the Finance Committee.

Bryant Jenkins is the father of Sydney (Class of 2024; 6th Grade) and Madison (Class of 2030; Kindergarten). Bryant attended high school in the New Orleans metropolitan area and moved to the SF Bay Area with his wife Liyun Li in 2011. Bryant is a Principal at Sperry Capital, an infrastructure financial advisory firm. Prior to that he was a project finance consultant and public finance banker for KPMG, UBS and Stone & Youngberg. Bryant has a B.A. in Economics from Columbia University and a M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

He previously served as Treasurer for Foundation for a College Education, an East Palo Alto nonprofit dedicated to increasing the number of students of color who graduate from four-year colleges. He is a committed member of the CAIS community and an adherent to the school’s mission. Bryant and Liyun strongly believe in the invaluable intrinsic benefits that accrue from bilingual education.

Bryant chairs the Finance Committee and serves on the Executive Committee.

Stephanie Co-Founder and CEO of Third State Books, the first general interest book publisher dedicated solely to promoting AAPI voices and stories. Before her career came full circle back to publishing, Stephanie worked for 15 years in digital marketing and e-commerce operations, leading e-commerce teams and managing multi-million dollar advertising budgets for retail brands such as ModCloth, Bebe, and Serena Williams’ eponymous fashion label. She also launched her own boutique retail website featuring clothing by independent and international designers before becoming a mom to Garrison (CAIS Class of 2029) and Solomon (age 4). 

Stephanie graduated magna cum laude in History and Literature from Harvard College, and serves on two other nonprofit boards, Jubilee Legal Advocates and Braid Mission.  When not juggling work and young children, she can be found tending to a large collection of houseplants, nerding out over both quality and trashy fiction, and building sandcastles with her family at the beach.

Stephanie serves on the Executive Committee and the Committee on Trustees.

For nearly 30 years, Board First Vice Chair Sherilyn Adams has dedicated her career to the non-profit sector, focusing on issues of child abuse and neglect, family violence, mental health, substance abuse, and homelessness. Sherilyn received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Social Work at California State University in Sacramento where she lived most of her life before moving the Bay Area in 1997. Before joining Larkin Street Youth Services in 2003, she worked on another non-profit focused mental health and substance abuse treatment for adults. At Larkin Street, she has led the agency through tremendous growth, nearly tripling the number of housing beds for youth over the past ten years, and putting Larkin Street at the vanguard of the field for its innovative multi-service model to resolve youth homelessness.

Sherilyn and her partner, Elaine, are the proud parents of Ella, Class of 2024. Since joining CAIS, Sherilyn has been a room parent and participated on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force. Elaine and Sherilyn continue to believe that CAIS is the perfect school for Ella and love being part of such a caring, vibrant school community.

Sherilyn serves on the Advancement Committee and the Audit and Risk Management Committee.

Daniel Chang has two children ages 5 and 7. Hugo, his oldest son attends CAIS and is in the Class of 2026. His younger son Julian attends Alamo Elementary School. His wife Deb spends a lot of her time volunteering for CAIS and is a board member of Julian’s Awareness Movement (JAM). He was born in Taipei, Taiwan and spent his entire youth there. Daniel attended Taipei American School (TAS) and graduated in 1994. That fall he moved to Portland, Oregon and attended Lewis and Clark College. He graduated with a BA in Economics and a Minor in Chinese while studying abroad in Beijing for one semester. After graduation, Daniel moved to the East Coast and worked for Air Products and Chemicals in their Career Development Program. He ended up moving back to the West Coast as a Marketing position opened up in Santa Clara. He is currently the President of Fang Da Properties, a real estate investment company. He is also a board member of JAM, which he founded with his wife Deb.

Family is the most important part of Daniel’s life. You will either see him on the golf links or trying to keep up with the rest of his extremely active family. He have been involved with CAIS as the Preschool soccer coach for his son’s soccer team. He believes in the school’s mission and wants all CAIS kids to succeed.

Daniel serves on the Advancement Committee, the Committee on Trustees, and the Facilities Committee.

As Vice President, Global Marketing for Google’s leading consumer products and services including Search, Maps, Shopping and Payments, Marvin Chow is a steward of the company’s helpfulness mission and a dedicated advocate for diversity and inclusion in the Google and marketing communities. Marvin oversees pivotal efforts related to sustainability and crisis solutions, like the company’s integrated Covid response, as well as key strategic initiatives like AI, Augmented Reality and Google’s marquee innovation event, Google I/O.

Prior to Google, Marvin worked in strategy, marketing and general management. Most recently he was at Nike, where he led marketing efforts for Greater China, Japan and Korea, as well as strategic global projects like NIKEiD and NIKE+. His career also spanned a number of different brands such as Nickelodeon, Reebok and starts-ups created by Michael Jordan, John Elway and Benchmark Venture Capital. He is an advisor at CapitalG and Gradient Ventures as well as an LP in ventures funds like Gold House, Human, TrailMix and Bread and Butter.

Marvin was honored as an Adweek Brand Genius in 2019 and named to Adweek 50 in 2021. His team’s work has been awarded numerous Cannes Lions awards, while Marvin himself has also served as a judge for various industry awards including the Effies and Young Cannes Lions. An engaged industry leader, Marvin sits on the Adweek Innovators Council and also enjoys mentoring the next generation of marketers through a range of talent development programs.

Marvin is a prominent voice for diversity, equity and inclusion across culture, marketing and products, with his leadership earning him recognition on Ascend’s A-List in 2022 and Gold House’s A100 list in 2021. Within Google, Marvin serves on the company’s Asian Leadership Group and as founder and exec sponsor of its Asians in Marketing network.

Marvin lives in San Francisco with his wife, JiYoung, and their two daughters, Polaire (Class of 2025) and Cece (Class of 2027).

Marvin serves on the Advancement Committee.

Born in Monterrey, Mexico, Domingo Guerra moved to the US at 18 to pursue his passion for technology. After years working as an engineer at Applied Materials and a program manager at Brocade, he decided to pursue his lifelong dream of starting a company. In 2011, he co-founded Appthority, a mobile cybersecurity startup which became the market leader in-app security. Domingo served as President until 2018 when Appthority was acquired by Symantec. Today Domingo is the EVP of Trust at Incode.

Domingo holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Santa Clara University. He’s been granted 15 patents across the semiconductor, robotics, and cybersecurity industries.

Domingo lives in San Francisco with his wonderful wife Yvonne (an endodontist, originally from Hong Kong) and two amazing daughters, Lucía (Class of ’29) and Maya (Class of ’32). On weekends, they can be found exploring nature in San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area.

Domingo chairs the Advancement Committee and serves on the Committee on Trustees.

John is the father of Jay (Class of 2025) and Aly (Class of 2028).  John grew up in the Pacific Northwest and holds an A.B. in Economics from Duke University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.  He began his career in New York in corporate law and subsequently spent over 20 years as an investment banker covering the technology and fintech sectors. John is currently a partner at Mosaik Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on the fintech sector. He is actively involved in all aspects of the firm’s activities, including capital raising, investment decisions, and serving on the boards of several of its portfolio companies.

John has been a San Francisco resident since 2009. He and his wife, Anne, a San Francisco native, have been actively involved in the CAIS community since their children began pre-school there. Together, they have served in various capacities at CAIS, including on the Annual Fund and ShowCAIS Sponsorship Committees, as an Admission Ambassador and also as Co-Chair of ShowCAIS.

In their free time, John, Anne, Aly and Jay enjoy travel, tennis and golf. John also serves on the board of First Tee – San Francisco.

John chairs the Audit and Risk Committee and serves on the Finance Committee.

Paul Kocher grew up in Corvallis, Oregon and received a B.S. in biology from Stanford University. Excitement about the technology industry sidetracked his plan of becoming a veterinarian, and he became a cryptographer instead. Paul’s technical work includes co-authoring the SSL 3.0 protocol (which encrypts web connections when the “lock” icon is shown) and many other projects related to Internet and device security. He founded the company Cryptography Research, Inc. in 1995, which became a division of Rambus when it was acquired in 2011. He also co-founded ValiCert, has advised multiple technology start-ups, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2009. Paul is honored and excited to serve on the CAIS board for many reasons, including the school’s unique role in fostering bridges between the U.S. and China, which he hopes will be a foundation for global friendships, business relationships, and diplomatic relations in the years ahead.

Paul serves on the Facilities Committee.

Jen Lai is mother of Sabrina Z. (Class of 2025) and Maya Z. (Class of 2027), both of whom entered CAIS in their Pre-K3 year.  Born and raised in Pasadena, California to Taiwanese immigrants, Jen completed her bachelor’s degree at Stanford University, MD/MBA degrees at Tufts University School of Medicine, and internship/residency at Columbia University before returning back to the Bay Area for her gastroenterology and liver transplant fellowships at UCSF.  Jen is currently the UCSF Endowed Professor of Liver Health & Transplantation, where she directs the liver clinical research arm of UCSF Health, leads a research program funded by the National Institutes of Health, and maintains a clinical practice caring for patients with liver disease and liver cancer.  In her spare time, Jen continues to pursue her dream of playing ladies championships at Wimbledon Centre Court.  Jen is honored to serve on the Board and support CAIS and its community.

Jennifer serves on the Finance Committee.

Lucinda is a Senior Consultant for the Carney Sandoe Consulting Group. Her work centers on board governance as well as coaching and mentoring School Heads. In 2018, Lucinda concluded a 14-year tenure as the Head of School of Marin Country Day School (CA). Prior to MCDS, she worked with Mayor Daley in Chicago as the Chief Education Officer and prior to that, she served as the Head of School and Principal of The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools from 1986 to 2002.

Lucinda began her career with the National Teacher Corps Program working with low-income schools in San Francisco and taught in the San Francisco Public Schools as one of the first Chinese bilingual bicultural teachers from 1968 to 1972. She helped lead the class action suit, Lau vs Nichols, which brought bilingual bicultural education to the US. As a professor and lecturer at Erikson Institute, University of Illinois, and the University of Chicago for 25 years, she completed research and writings in mathematics teaching and learning, curriculum development, and family and cultural studies.Currently, she serves as a board member for the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco, Alder Graduate School of Education and New Century Chamber Orchestra. She served on the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) board as Vice Chair, the NAIS Editorial Board and past Chair of the Board for the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS). She has also served as a Trustee for Common Sense Media and Lick Wilmerding, Head Royce, and Urban High Schools.

Lucinda obtained her B.A. in Creative Arts-Music and her M.A. in Elementary Education from San Francisco State, and her Ph.D. in Child Development and Early Childhood Education from University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana. Her two children reside and work in the San Francisco Bay Area and she sees her four grandchildren weekly.

Kathleen is the mother of Catherine (Class of 2025) and Ellie (Class of 2021). She grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. She attended Harvard University, where she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemical Sciences. Kathleen first moved to San Francisco to attend UCSF, where she was in the combined MD/PhD program. She did her residency training in Boston, and then returned to UCSF for her fellowship training in nephrology and critical care medicine. Kathleen remains on the faculty at UCSF, where she is a Professor of Medicine and Anesthesia and is the Medical Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit and the Apheresis/Hemodialysis Unit.

Kathleen has volunteered in a number of capacities at CAIS, including as a Parent Ambassador for Admissions, as a Room Parent, and as an Annual Fund fundraiser. Pre-COVID, Kathleen enjoyed travelling with her family, and she looks forward to travelling more soon. In her free time, Kathleen enjoys spending time with her family supporting and participating in their pursuits—Ellie and Catherine are avid skiers and swimmers!

Kathleen serves on the Finance Committee.

An immigrant from Hong Kong at the age of twelve, Dr. Ben Lui and his family received health care from the very same health care safety net to which he has devoted his entire career since graduating from Yale Medical School and the SFGH Internal Medicine Primary Care Residency Program. He is currently the Chief Medical Informatics Officer for On Lok Lifeways, an organization dedicated to serving and caring for frail seniors in its Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE). During his stint at the San Francisco Department of Public Health as Chief of Community Primary Care and Director of Community Integrated Health Care, Dr. Lui led system transformation work to enhance the health network’s capabilities to address patients’ social needs. As Director of Chinatown Public Health Center, he served and advocated for a primarily immigrant population, most of whom were socioeconomically disadvantaged and culturally isolated.  He believes health care is a right and not a privilege, and feels honored to work in the safety net to help those patients most in need.

Dr. Lui is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and an Assistant Clinical Professor at UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital.  His board experience includes serving as President of the Board of Directors of NICOS Chinese Health Coalition, and as a board member of On Lok Senior Health Services.

At CAIS, Ben is a member of the Pandemic Response Advisory Team and has been serving as an Admission Docent since 2016. In addition, he was a member of the Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. A Harvard University graduate with a concentration in East Asian Studies, Dr. Lui appreciates the beauty, balance, and power of an education infused with the best of the East and West. He has happily found this beauty and balance in CAIS for his children, Georgiana (Class of 2024) and Declan (Class of 2028).

Ben serves on the Committee on Trustees and the Finance Committee.

Jon’s daughter Aly is a student in the Class of 2025. A Bay Area native, Jon has enjoyed the challenging ride through the many cycles of commercial real estate in the region for more than 20 years with ground-up development, building rehabilitation, and asset repositioning. As the CEO of his firm Urban Land Development (ULD), he has been the visionary force behind the conception, design, and realization of the company’s portfolio of real estate projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also serves on the Board of Directors and Investment Committee for Urban Land Capital, a fund providing investors with a diversified portfolio of select assets which would typically only be reserved for institutional investors.

Never satisfied with simply participating in the industry and strongly believing that communities are best served when developments include cultural arts and related enhancement projects, Jon leads the effort at ULD to develop community relationships and provide a base for retail entrepreneurship, enabling future opportunities for local and regional populations. Included in the many organizations he supports are Jacob’s Heart, Children’s Cancer Support Services, Community Arts Stabilization Trust, APACC, United Playaz, and the ABADA-Capoeira Arts Center. And, of course, CAIS!

Jon’s degree is a B.S. in Environmental Toxicology from the University of California, Davis, which underscores his commitment to protecting the natural environment and ensuring a safe and sustainable project.

Jon serves on the Facilities Committee.

Originally from the Chicago area, Dr. Monique Schaulis moved to Oakland in 1998 for her Emergency Medicine training at Alameda County Medical Center. She now practices both of her medical specialities, Emergency and Palliative Medicine, at Kaiser San Francisco and South San Francisco. She serves as faculty for Vital Talk, a non-profit dedicated to improving physician patient communication. In 2021, she will be President of the San Francisco Marin Medical Society, which unites dedicated physicians to champion quality health care and innovation for our patients and community.

Dr. Schaulis received her M.D. from the University of Chicago and she received a B.A. from Wesleyan University where she majored in Latin American Studies. Mid-career, she also obtained a Master’s in Public Health from UC Berkeley. Her husband Matt and she have two children, Henry H. an alumnus of the Class of 2021 and Sena H. a current student in the Class of 2023. They love watching how CAIS helps them grow into global citizens. For fun, they love to travel and swap houses worldwide. During non-work time, she can be found at Fort Funston with their dogs, riding her Peloton bike in the wee hours, and stealing a few minutes to read.

Monique serves on the Advancement Committee. 

Darren is the father of Claire (Class of 2024) and Willy (Class of 2026).  He grew up in Los Angeles and moved to the Bay Area to attend UC Berkeley where he received a B.S. in environmental economics. He obtained a M.P.P. degree from Harvard, an M.D. from Stanford, and he did residency training in internal medicine at UCSF. While at UCSF, he met his wife, Stefani Wedl, who is now a Hospitalist physician at CPMC. Darren is currently the CEO of Apixio, a healthcare technology start-up that uses artificial intelligence to mine medical records to improve care quality. During his career, he has held executive roles in managed care and healthcare technology companies.  In his free time, Darren continues to pursue his rock star dreams as a drummer in a local band.  He is honored to serve on the Board and support CAIS and its parent community.

Darren serves on the Advancement Committee and the Audit and Risk Management Committee.

Born in Taiwan, Peter Shiau moved to the US when his father was transferred while working for the Taiwan Foreign Service. After growing up in Los Angeles amid the glitz of Hollywood, he fled to Princeton University to pursue a degree in politics and economics. He moved back to LA regretfully working in the film business for two years before moving back to the East Coast to earn an MBA at the Wharton School of Business.

Peter took a summer internship at America Online which started a life-long love for technology. Over a 25-year career, he developed into an enterprise technology executive with expertise in product management and business development. Working at both startups and enterprises, Peter drove innovation across diverse sectors including financial services, utilities, video streaming, online advertising and more. Peter recently co-founded two startups: blockstack.io to provide blockchain infrastructure for financial services and was acquired by Digital Asset Holdings; and pear.ai which provides energy analytics to enterprises. He currently is on leave from pear.ai to manage his family’s real estate business.

At CAIS, Peter served as the FSA’s vice-chair for two years and a class liaison for many years. He has volunteered for various school activities, most memorably as a line monitor at the bouncy house during Holiday Faire.

Peter lives in San Francisco with his wife Sharon (also from Taiwan), daughters Kate ’19 who is a high school junior at The Bay School and Kelly ’23, and Mochi the poochon.

Peter serves on the Audit and Risk Management Committee, the National Center for Independent Schools (NCIS) Committee, NCIS Audit Committee, Facilities Committee, and the 19th Avenue Campus Sub-Committee.

Jon is the father of Jack (Class of 2031) and Emily (Class of 2034). Jon was born in China and spent his early childhood in Beijing before immigrating with his family to New York. After graduating with a Computer Science degree from MIT, Jon spent formative years building enterprise mobile software at Microsoft where he met his wife Jane. In 2010, Jon followed his passion for entrepreneurship and co-founded FutureAdvisor, an automated investment platform for financial advisors and retail investors. FutureAdvisor was acquired by BlackRock where Jon continued to lead technology as Managing Director in Aladdin Wealth Tech.

Jon is an active investor/advisor and board member in early stage startups and is proud to give back to his community. He serves on the SF Advisory Board of 10,000 Degrees, an organization that supports students from low-income backgrounds toward college success. As well, Jon serves on the Sandbox Funding Board at his alma mater MIT to provide greater entrepreneurship opportunities to students.

Jon serves on the Facilities Committee.