Staff and Board
Meet our Team
Senior Leadership
Jason Morrella
Chief Executive Officer
Jason Morrella, Chief Executive Officer
Jason joins RAFT from Revolution Robotics Foundation, a STEM focused foundation that creates robotic kits, challenges, and competitions for kids, where he served as Executive Director. Prior to leading Revolution Robotics, Jason was the President for the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation where he spearheaded their overall growth from $1M to almost $10M in seven years by expanding STEAM programs and participation to over 18,000 teams in 40 countries. Jason is a former award-winning high school teacher in San Jose. He has successfully planned, developed, and launched global education and workforce development programs, including initiatives to promote the inclusion and advancement of girls and under-represented groups in STEAM disciplines and fields.
Dave Muilenburg
Chief Operations Officer
Dave Muilenburg, Chief Operations Officer
Dave joined RAFT in 2015 as Director of Finance after 20 years in the high tech industry. Dave brings strategic financial planning and analysis leadership having supported a variety of business organizations including corporate finance, product design, sales, marketing and manufacturing for technology companies.
Nivisha Mehta
Chief Development Officer
Nivisha Mehta, Chief Development Officer
As of January 2020, Nivisha Mehta has joined RAFT as the Chief Development Officer. Nivisha brings 18 years of experience in major gift fundraising, grant writing, special event planning and sponsorship, marketing, and program strategy and development for nonprofit organizations. In that time, she has raised over $8 million and developed expertise in fundraising across diverse ethnic communities in the Bay Area. Nivisha has been a senior philanthropy/major gifts officer for many large Bay Area nonprofit organizations such as the American Red Cross, Alum Rock Counseling Center, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, IIT Madras Foundation, El Camino Hospital Foundation for their South Asian Heart Center, and most recently Hope Services.
Naa Anim-Appiah
Finance Director
Naa Anim-Appiah, Finance Director
Naa Anim-Appiah joins RAFT after serving as Sr. Director of Finance at CityTeam Ministries in San Jose for almost seven years. She obtained an MBA in Finance from Emory University in Atlanta, and she has over twenty years experience in Finance and Accounting, having worked in both non-profit and large for-profit organizations. Naa brings extensive financial leadership experience in strategic planning and analysis as well as accounting controllership.
Chase Davenport
Senior Director of Education
Chase Davenport, Senior Director of Education
Chase has worked in education for over 20 years serving as a teacher, administrator, curriculum content writer, program evaluator, charter school advocate, and consultant. Chase started his education career as a classroom teacher and has taught at the middle and high school levels. After a brief stint in the private sector, he ran a charter school, then joined the California Charter Schools Association, where he served as Director of School Quality, Vice President of School Development and Support, and Vice President of Research and Evaluation. He also currently serves as a Commissioner for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).
Before joining RAFT, Chase served as the Managing Director for The Alvo Institute, one of the first technology-agnostic consulting firms dedicated to personalized learning, and as the Director of Personalized Learning for New Leaders. In these positions, Chase helped traditional, charter, and private schools and districts across the country to design, pilot, implement, and evaluate blended and personalized learning programs.
Chase earned his BA in History from Pomona College in Claremont, CA, and his Master’s in Curriculum and Teacher Education from Stanford University.
Vanessah Liu
Senior Marketing Director
Vanessah Liu, Senior Marketing Director
Vanessah joins RAFT as the Senior Marketing Director. She brings over 15 years experience working in tech, broadcast media, and educational nonprofits. Her enthusiastic approach with a focus on experimental campaigns and content strategy have successfully increased month-over-month engagement, new business sales, and customer retention. She has a BS in Advertising and a minor in Anthropology.
Education
Jeff Fox
Kit Development Engineer
Nari Kim
Director of Student Programs
Mike Pollock
Making Wizard Engineer
Mikey Ramot
Education Materials Specialist
Steve Rummell
Director of Partnerships
Eric Welker
Director of Educational Content
Development and Marketing
Kate Ball
Development Manager
Caroline Evans
Volunteer and Event Coordinator
Arlyne Nava
Marketing Intern
Ginny Nichols
Marketing Director
Finance and Operations
Ruben Chavez
Warehouse Associate
Shannon Fu
Production & Volunteer Specialist
Brenda Hayes
Office Coordinator
Dan Muilenburg
Fulfillment & Materials Specialist
Anne Murphy
Accounting Specialist
Bao Pham
Operations & Systems Specialist
Jamie Sandoval
HR Generalist
Sandy Suttora
Production Director
Siang Tai
IT Specialist
Anwar Tamiz
Finance Manager
Store
Josefa Arruiza
Engagement Coordinator
Sylvia Lodge
Engagement Coordinator
Monique Lovelace-Narvaez
RAFT Store Manager
Lilia Mata Vazquez
Engagement Coordinator
Martina Ramirez
Engagement Coordinator
Quiana Thompson
Assistant Retail Store Manager
Jay Whitehill
Engagement Coordinator
Board of Directors
Cecil Mak
Chair
Cecil Mak
Cecil is a Partner in KPMG’s Silicon Valley office with over 21 years of experience providing audit and accounting services to public and venture-backed private companies primarily in the Software and SaaS industry. He is designated as one of KPMG’s SEC Reviewing Partners and National Revenue Recognition Network members. Cecil was previously a Partner in KPMG’s National Office where he consulted on complex technical accounting, auditing and financial reporting matters. Cecil also served two years as a Professional Accounting Fellow in the Office of the Chief Accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he consulted on audit and financial reporting matters, studied and developed rule proposals under federal securities laws, and conducted various activities with respect to the SEC’s oversight of the PCAOB and FASB. Cecil began his career with KPMG’s Vancouver, Canada office.
Brooks Beard
Vice Chair
Brooks Beard
Brooks is the Vice President & Deputy General Counsel – Litigation, Employment, Cybersecurity, and Regulatory Compliance at VMware, where he oversees a global team of legal professions covering subject matter areas such as litigation, government inquiries and investigations, employment law issues, cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, and VMware’s Dawn Raid Program. He is also a member of VMware’s Cybersecurity Response Team, Emergency Response Team, and Crisis Management Team. Mr. Beard previously served for a year as the interim lead of VMware’s global Ethics & Compliance Team and, during the same period, lead the Privacy Team.
Brooks joined VMware in 2014 after spending 18 years in private practice, including 17 years at Morrison & Foerster in its San Francisco office, where he became a partner in January 2005. While at Morrison & Foerster, Mr. Beard had a broad-based litigation practice representing clients in state and federal court, as well as before state and federal administrative agencies, focusing on intellectual property (patent, trademark, and trade secrets), false advertising, environmental, breach of contract, trade secret, white-collar criminal, and civil rights matters, among other types of matters. In addition to being admitted to practice in several Federal District Courts, Mr. Beard is admitted to practice before the Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, and Federal Circuit U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States.
In October 2007, then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Mr. Beard to serve as a Commissioner on the San Francisco Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board—a position he held until 2013. And from 2009 until 2014, Mr. Beard sat on the Eco-Entrepreneurship Advisory Council and the Council of Legal Advisors at the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Mr. Beard received his B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, his J.D., cum laude, from Vermont Law School, and his LL.M., with distinction, from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Sharon Hutchins
Secretary
Sharon Hutchins
Sharon Hutchins is a global strategic IT and business operations leader who delivers substantial experience designing, leading a broad range of improvement and realignment initiatives through more than 20 years of leadership at Intuit, Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU). She has proven success with corporate and public sector organizational turnarounds, leading IT M&A integrations and driving global expansion. Sharon understands all aspects of business operations and is known for her ability to translate vision into operational action plans, build leaders at all levels and help companies understand their customer base. She is uniquely qualified to advise and assist companies in understanding and growing their customer base, advising on M&A initiatives, improving operations and exploring digital transformation to gain efficiency and effectiveness.
Sharon works closely with Intuit’s corporate development team to analyze and make decisions on company-wide acquisitions. In her roles as IT Business Operations, M&A Integration, Global Expansion and Special Events, she devised a global IT M&A Playbook to provide a structured approach to define IT’s role in all M&A phases and deliver flawless Day 1 integration. Sharon has proven success helping Intuit enter new markets, establishing partnerships with the right global suppliers and understanding foreign government affairs and cultural sensitivities. In a push to drive global expansion, her global IT procurement and fulfillment strategy shortened the purchasing time of IT hardware and support for international regions by 50%. As an expert in governance and compliance, she led the implementation of a GRC solution to streamline and oversee the SOX and PCI compliance programs.
Sharon earned her Bachelor of Science from Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley, and studied upper-level coursework in Educational Leadership at California State University, Sacramento. She holds Six Sigma Master Black Belt Certification (GE approach) and was a featured speaker at the Haas Women in Leadership Conference at U.C. Berkeley in March 2018. Prior Board experience: School Board Trustee, Travis Unified School District, 1985 - 1996 (4 years Chairman of the Board).
Stefan Raffl
Treasurer
Frederic Caldwell
Frederic Caldwell
Frederic manages partnerships at Netflix as part of the Product team, working closely with global and regional partners in the media and telco space since 2018. Prior to Netflix, he was a multidisciplinary professional with 25 years experience leading Engineering, Product and Strategy teams at semiconductor companies (Synaptics, Audience) specializing in human interface technologies. Starting in Engineering, he spent several years in customer-facing roles before transitioning to Product Management and later to Corporate Development / Technology Strategy roles, driving the M&A strategy that directly led to multiple acquisitions and investments. Frederic began his career at AlliedSignal Aerospace as a Systems Engineer. In his free time, he likes spending time with his family, playing musical instruments, and volunteering in the community. Frederic is a member of the Board of Directors at the non-profit RAFT.
Carolyn Carhart-Quezada
Rachelle Daniel
Keli Forsman
Jillian Forusz
Jillian Forusz
In her role as Sr. Director, external reporting & technical accounting at Adobe, Jillian is responsible for the accounting and administration for Global Equity and Payroll Operations and related activities under both US GAAP and IFRS and providing technical accounting guidance to Adobe’s business units and other functional areas. She is also responsible for purchase accounting, equity conversion, and equity valuation related to mergers and acquisitions and overseeing the preparation, review, and filing of Adobe’s SEC reporting on Forms 10-Q and 10-K. She has led Adobe’s implementation efforts related to the adoption of various new accounting standards, including the recent updates to ASC 718 Stock Compensation and ASC 842, Leasing.
Jillian is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a Certified Equity Professional (CEP). Prior to joining Adobe, Jillian was part of the Audit and Assurance group at Deloitte. She has also held various finance and accounting related positions with the Ritz Carlton, LLC and the Walt Disney Corporation.
In her spare time, Jillian enjoys spending time with her husband and 3 kids, gourmet cooking, wine tasting, travel, swimming, and running.
Kevin Fried
Kevin Fried
Kevin is a Principal with Deloitte & Touche’s Risk & Financial Advisory practice and is a national leader in the Extended Enterprise Risk Management (EERM) practice. Kevin joined Deloitte more than twenty-five years ago and has delivered a broad range of services, including risk management, third party compliance, contract compliance, software asset management, software quality assurance, and internal and external audit services during his career. Kevin has participated in the development and operation of numerous extended enterprise compliance programs focused on hardware, software, and intellectual property management in the technology, telecom, pharmaceutical, and consumer business industries. Kevin is also an advisory partner for several global clients in the technology industry where we are delivering a wide range of consulting and compliance services.
Kevin received BS degrees in both Accounting and Computer Information Systems from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
Certifications – CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor) and CGEIT (Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT)
Jim Harrington
Jim Harrington
Jim Harrington is the President of Harrington Search, a global retained search company. He leads searches in the Technology, Biotech, Pharmaceutical, Medical Devices, BPO, Financial Services, Publishing, Defense, Hospitality, and Gaming industries. He differentiates his search practice with assessment approaches that emphasize the "Who" not just the "What" in candidate profiles to enhance and align the client's organization capabilities, culture, mission, diversity, and business.
Before founding Harrington Search, Jim was the CHRO of firms including Synaptics, BroadVision, Norand, Panda Express, and Syncor International. He led and partnered in the building of strategies for talent, culture, diversity and inclusion, and alignment within entrepreneurial and emerging organizations.
Jim holds a Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from Mt. Mercy University.
Alicia Moore
Alicia Moore
Alicia is a seasoned C-Suite high tech executive with extensive experience in developing and driving business strategy and transformations, M&A, governance, and HR solutions. Alicia has had a leadership role in public and private companies ranging in size from pre-money private to $1B+, across technology and industries, including semiconductors, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and Internet of Things (IoT).
Throughout her career, Alicia has guided Boards through managing crises including investigations; regulatory, security, and product issues; stock option backdating; and executive and Board member transitions. Most recently, she developed best practices for Echelon Corporation's Board, Board Committees, and company regarding ethics and integrity, ESG and social mandates, cybersecurity, and legal compliance. Alicia was a Board Director and Chair of the Compensation Committee for Women's Capital Corporation and served as a Board Director and Member of the Nominating and Governance Committee for Wait-on-Me.
In 2019, Alicia obtained her certificate in the first cohort for the Venture Capital University, a joint program between UC Berkeley and the National Association of Venture Capitalists. A 2018 Executive Fellow for the Berkeley Center for Law and Business, Alicia was a participant at the 2018 WEB Financial Analysis Program for UC Berkeley Executive Education at the Haas School of Business. She was a finalist for the 2015 Best Bay Area General Counsel for a public company under $1B in revenue and has earned honors including the Legal Profession Pioneer Award from the San Francisco Bar Association and the Distinguished Legal Service Award from the Corporate Legal Times. Alicia earned her Juris Doctor Degree, with Moot Court Honors, from the UCLA School of Law and a BA degree in International Relations from Stanford University.
Edith Mourtos
Edith Mourtos
Edith Mourtos was named Superintendent of Luther Burbank School District effective July 1, 2020. She brings more than 35 years of experience in education, serving as teacher, principal, reading language arts coordinator, director, and Chief Academic Officer.
She oversaw the Professional Learning and Instructional Support Division which provides leadership and support to school districts through professional development, implementation of curriculum and instructional practices as well as the SCCOE EPIC and LEAP educator certification programs. Her leadership and the work of her team is a critical piece of supporting schools in their efforts to raise student achievement through the best practices in teaching and learning.
Ms. Mourtos also served as Principal of Cumberland School in the Sunnyvale School District. Under her direction, Cumberland received the 2016 Glenn W. Hoffmann Exemplary Program Award, the 2016 California Gold Ribbon Schools Award, and the 2017 Sunnyvale Community Award for Outstanding Environmental Achievement and the California Distinguished School Award in 2018.
Ms. Mourtos has also provided professional development and teacher education courses for the Alameda County Office of Education/University of California Office of the President and San Jose State University. Prior to her move into administration, Edith served as a classroom teacher for 16 years in the Greater Bay Area. She holds a Master of Arts in Staff Development from Mills College and a Bachelor of Arts Liberal Studies from San Jose State University.
Sridhar Narasimhan
Sridhar Narasimhan
Sridhar Narasimhan is a management consultant, providing strategy and ‘hands on’ interim executive leadership services to public & private (venture-backed) enterprises.
Prior to this, Sri was Vice President & General Manager of Customer Experience for Hewlett Packard (HP). In this role, he was responsible for creating an exceptional, pan-HP experience across the entire customer journey.
Sridhar has more than 25 years of international leadership experience in sales, marketing and operations; across hardware, software, and services at companies such as HP, Avaya, Symantec, and Adobe. Sridhar holds a Bachelor’s Degree with honors in Marketing from the University of Huddersfield in the UK.
Yosuke Ogata
Yosuke Ogata
Yosuke is an audit partner in KPMG's Technology practice. He has more than eighteen years of experience serving clients in all aspects of assurance, including financial statement audits, quarterly reviews, and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Yosuke has provided professional audit services to large multinational groups in accordance with PCAOB requirements and U.S. GAAP. His experience ranges from working with pre-IPO venture capital backed private companies to the successful coordination of large global audit projects on multinational Fortune 500 companies. He has a thorough understanding of SEC rules and regulations and has been involved in numerous debt and equity offerings. Yosuke has managed several complex global audits for technology clients and has extensive international experience in the software, technology, media, and telecom sectors, including a rotation to KPMG's London, UK audit practice.
Vidya Phalke
Vidya Phalke
Vidya Phalke is technologist at heart with over 25 years of experience in Enterprise Software, Cloud and Distributed Computing, Security and Risk Technologies. As the Chief Innovation and InfoSec Officer of MetricStream, he currently leads MetricStream's GRC Lab which is shaping next generation innovation in Governance, Risk, and Compliance for Enterprises and Global organizations. He received Silicon Valley's Bay Area CIO of the year award in 2017. He holds a Doctorate from Rutgers and Management degree from MIT.
Karen Rohde
Karen Rohde
Karen D. Rohde is a retired Human Resources Executive. She was most recently the Chief Human Resources Officer for Marvell Technologies. She has also held the top Human Resources role at Amyris, Inc. (biotech) and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. Prior to those roles, she was the Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Talent Officer for Sun Microsystems. Karen has an M.B.A. from U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and spent the first decade of her career in Finance. Karen is passionate about unlocking the potential of people, teams and organizations, creating order out of chaos, and making connections. She also believes in volunteering in her local community. Karen has served on the Boards of Directors of The Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose and The Girls’ Middle School.
Sundi Sundaresh
Sundi Sundaresh
Sundi Sundaresh is currently a Board member at GridGain Systems, an innovative leader enabling in-memory computing platforms. Sundi has more than 25 years of experience in leading high-growth businesses in the tech industry. Before becoming a board member of GridGain, SandForce (sold to LSI) and Sureline Systems, Sundi was the president and CEO of Adaptec, Inc (Nasdaq: ADPT, sold to PMC-Sierra, now part of MicroChip). During the course of his career, Sundi has also led multiple startups including Cinarra Systems, Inc. (location-based audience targeting, analytics and attribution, sold to Softbank Corp), Xangati, Inc. (IT Operations Analytics, sold to Virtana), Candera Inc. (the industry’s first network storage controller), and Jetstream Communications (market-leading voice over broadband solution, sold to Paradyne, now part of Zhone). During a previous tenure at Adaptec, Sundi served in a number of positions, including corporate Vice-President and General Manager for the Personal I/O division and corporate Vice President of worldwide marketing. He has also held various positions at Hewlett-Packard and National Semiconductor.
Sundi also serves on the non-profit Boards of the IIT Madras Foundation and Pratham USA SF Bay Area chapter.
Sundi holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, a Master of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Kathy Yates
Kathy Yates, Treasurer
Kathy is passionate about mission-driven organizations that foster positive social impact. She has served as CEO or COO for companies in publishing, online media, and education software, including the San Jose Mercury News, Marketwatch.com, and Teachscape. She also has more than 20 years experience serving as a Director on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations doing work in education (Bellarmine College Prep, KTEH Channel 54), health care (Good Samaritan Health System, ReSurge International), and civic development (American Leadership Forum).