Preschool through Eighth Grade in the heart of Silicon Valley

Board of Trustees

About the Board of Trustees

Woodland’s Board of Trustees is responsible for the long-term well-being of our school, and board members serve as guardians of our mission.

Trustees oversee Woodland’s financial operations, and through strategic planning, they set the course for our future development. Trustees are not involved in the day-to-day running of school operations, nor are they involved in the admissions process. Each trustee gives a tremendous amount of their time on behalf of the school and each considers it an honor to do so. Other than the gratitude of our school community, there is no form of compensation or tuition reimbursement.

The board is comprised of members chosen from current parents, alumni, parents of alumni, and community members whose expertise is of value to the school. The head of school serves as an ex-officio member of the board. Each trustee serves on at least two committees (which meet anywhere from two to five times per year). In addition, there are seven full board meetings.

profile pic of Michelle Gabriel - Board Member

Michelle Gabriel, Chair

Michelle Gabriel has been a part of the Woodland community since 2012, and joined the board in 2014. She has a background in nursing, having had a passion for healthcare since she was a child. She has worked in many health care systems since becoming a nurse, including Stanford Health Care, VA Palo Alto and El Camino Health. She has worked as a front line nurse in cancer care, an advanced practice nurse in palliative care, as an administrator in performance improvement, and now as an operational manager. She currently manages Stanford Health Care’s Primary Care Clinic in Portola Valley as well as the Concierge Medicine Clinic.

Michelle has a BS from Northwestern University and a MS from The University of California in San Francisco. She is the mother of two Woodland boys, Aiden (class of 2021) and Kyle (class of 2024).

Soniaharrisoneadshot

Sonia Arrison

Sonia Arrison is a best-selling author, analyst, entrepreneur, and investor. She is founder of 100 Plus Capital, co-founder of Unsugarcoat Media, and associate founder and advisor to Singularity University in Mountain View, California. Her research focuses on exponentially growing technologies and their impact on society. Her most recent book, 100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith, addresses the social, economic, and cultural impacts of radical human longevity. It gained national best-seller status and keeps Sonia busy speaking all over the world. Sonia is a Board Member at the Thiel Foundation, Foresight Institute, and Woodland School. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, British Columbia, and author of two previous books (Western Visions and Digital Dialog). She was previously a Director and Senior Fellow in Tech Studies at the Pacific Research Institute and a weekly columnist at TechNewsWorld.

Sonia is the parent of two Woodland School students.

Sharon Binger

Sharon Binger

Sharon Binger is a Managing Director and the Chief Compliance Officer of Silver Lake, the global leader in large scale technology investing. In her role, she oversees a team of compliance professionals and is responsible for administering the firm's compliance program worldwide. She is also on point for addressing the firm's litigation. Prior to joining Silver Lake, Sharon spent more than eight years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Most recently at the SEC, she served as the regional director of the Philadelphia Regional Office where she administered the Commission's Enforcement and Regulatory programs for the Mid-Atlantic region. Prior to becoming regional director, Sharon served as an assistant regional director in enforcement in the SEC's New York office, and originally began at the SEC as a staff attorney in enforcement in New York. Before joining the SEC, Sharon was a senior litigation associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York.

Sharon received her BA from Northwestern University and her JD from Duke University.  She has twins at Woodland, class of 2026.

James Brundage Head Shot

James Brundage

James Brundage is a Partner at Ernst & Young LLP. He serves clients in the technology sector and provides financial, accounting and operational due diligence services to public corporations and private equity firms. James has experience with both buy and sell side transactions, including experience with public-to-public and cross-border transactions. Prior to joining Ernst & Young’s Transactions practice, he worked in the firm’s audit group with a focus on public technology companies.

James received a MA in Accountancy from The University of Texas at Austin and a BS in Business Administration from the McCombs School of Business . He currently sits on the Bay Area for McCombs Board of Directors. James is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in the States of California and Texas and is a member of the American Institute of CPAs.

profile pic Beth Carr - board member

Beth Carr

Beth has served on the Board since 2013. She is the co-chair of advancement and the chair of the audit committee.  Beth is a partner at EY LLP where she has worked in their San Jose office since 2001 and been a partner since 2004. Prior to that she worked at KPMG since 1994.  Beth works primarily for technology companies and practices significantly in the areas of international mergers and acquisitions, separation transactions, and structuring transactions. She has published several articles relating to international taxation in The Journal of International Taxation, Corporate Taxation and other professional publications. She also has taught both internal and external courses in the area of international taxation and accounting for income taxes.  

Beth received a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Menlo Park with her two sons Jack, class of 2020, and Luke, class of 2022, both have attended Woodland since Kindergarten.  She has also previously served on the Board of the San Jose Repertory Theater. 

Sharon Chang Head Shot

Sharon Chang

Sharon Chang is an operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, where she manages the firm’s business operations.  She previously led marketing efforts on the Market Development team and counseled portfolio companies on go-to-market strategies.  Sharon has been working in early stage technology companies for the past 15 years.  Previously, she was an integral part of the product marketing team at Opsware and led the worldwide product marketing team after HP acquired Opsware.  More recently, she was the head of marketing and a member of Rockmelt’s executive team.  After Rockmelt’s acquisition by Yahoo, Sharon led product for Yahoo News and spearheaded the highly visible Yahoo Digital Magazines.

Sharon is a Bay Area native who holds an MBA from the University of Southern California and a BA from the University of the Pacific where she was a Regent’s Scholar.  She served on the WSPA Board and has three children at Woodland in the classes of 2021, 2023, and 2030.

Julie Galles

Julie Galles

Julie Galles has been an educator for over 25 years.  She is the Interim Head of School at The Wesley School.  Julie previously served as the Head of School at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Day School in San Mateo and as Middle School Director and Assistant Head at the San Francisco School.  She started her career with fifteen years in the science classroom at Harvard-Westlake School in Southern California and Marin Country Day School.  Throughout her career, she has written curriculum, designed advisory programs, organized professional seminars for Health and Sexuality Educators, mentored new teachers and administrators, and counseled countless students and parents.  Julie is passionate about child development and empowerment, educator growth, and parent education.  She currently also serves on the board of Kidpower International.

Julie holds a BS in Biology and a MA in Education, both from Stanford University.  She earned her California teaching credential through the Stanford Teacher Education Program and was subsequently Board Certified by the National Board of Teaching Standards in Early Adolescent Science.

Profile picture of Mac Harman, Board member

Mac Harman

Mac Harman is CEO and Founder of Balsam Brands. In 2006, Mac founded Balsam Hill in his Palo Alto, CA apartment. Ten years later, Balsam Hill was named to Forbes’ inaugural list of “America’s Best Small Companies” and today is a $200M direct-to-consumer retailer of holiday and home décor products in North America, Europe, and Australia. Mac has been featured on TV shows including TODAY and Fox News. Previously, he served as CEO of Progress Wire Products, in marketing for Clorox, in business development for the Cleveland Clinic, and as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. Mac has been named an EY Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist and honored on the Silicon Valley "40 under 40" list. He is an angel investor, mentor, and board advisor to various startups.

Mac holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BA in geosciences and economics with a minor in environmental studies from Williams College.

Abby Kirigin Head Shot

Abby Kirigin

Abby Kirigin is the Administrative and Advancement Director for Touchstone Learning, an elementary school in the Bay Area for dyslexic and 2E students. She is also a Doctoral student of Cognitive Diversity in Education at the Bridges Graduate School. She holds a Master's degree in Human Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon and an undergraduate degree from NYU in Computer Science & Philosophy. Abby previously co-founded a venture backed startup, and has worked as an Interaction Designer for startups, large companies, and the US government. Abby's son Luka graduated from Woodland school in the Spring of 2021.

Michael Mastrandrea

Michael Mastrandrea

Michael Mastrandrea is an interdisciplinary scientist focused on managing climate risks and the design and implementation of energy and climate policy in California and beyond. He is Research Director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program and a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. He also serves as Chief Advisor for Energy and Climate Research at the California Energy Commission. Prior to joining Woods he was Director of Near Zero and a Senior Research Associate at the Carnegie Institution for Science. He was part of the leadership team for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, a global report on climate change science and policy options for world governments. He also sits on the Editorial Board and is a managing editor for the scientific journal Climatic Change.

Michael holds a Ph.D. from Stanford’s Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, and a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Stanford. He and his wife Annabelle have two boys at Woodland, classes of 2026 and 2029.

profile pic of Karuna Mukherjea - Board Member

Karuna Mukherjea

Karuna is a Vice President, Product Marketing at SAP. She has been with SAP since October 2008 responsible for Enterprise cloud solutions. She also worked in Product Strategy at Oracle for 8 years.

Karuna has a master’s degree in Finance from Rochester Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in Commerce, Accounting and Finance from Osmania University and a bachelor’s in Commerce and Accounting from St. Francis College. Karuna has one child at Woodland, class of 2025, and an alumna, class of 2019.

profile pic of Roel Peeters

Roel Peeters

Roel Peeters is the CEO & Co-founder of Roost. Roel is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of startup experience ranging from enterprise software to consumer electronics and semiconductors.  Before starting Roost in 2014, he was the co-founder of Ozmo Devices, a pioneer in low-power Wi-Fi. Ozmo delivered the enabling technology for the world’s first WiFi mouse (marketed by HP) and the WiFi remote control shipping with the Roku 3 box. Roel is a co-inventor of low-power Wi-Fi Personal Area Networks (PAN) technology and successfully created a worldwide standard known as “Wi-Fi Direct”. Ozmo was acquired by Atmel in 2012.

Prior to Ozmo, Roel was one of the first employees at InQuira, a venture-funded search and web self-service enterprise software provider. As a marketing and sales executive, he was responsible for the development and execution of its highly successful early adopter program, signing up several Fortune 500 customers. InQuira was successfully acquired by Oracle. Earlier in his career, Roel held various applications engineering, sales, and sales management positions in Europe, Southeast Asia, and the U.S. with ICOS Vision Systems (acquired by KLA-Tencor), a semiconductor equipment manufacturer.

Roel received his MBA from The Wharton School and an MSEE from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. He has two children at Woodland, classes of 2022 and 2025.

Keith Randall

Keith Randall

Keith Randall received his PhD in computer science from MIT in 1998. He worked for Compaq's System Research Center on a variety of topics including Java virtual machines, compilers, and web graphs. He moved to Google in 2001 and became a tech lead for one of the largest advertising networks in the world, Google AdWords and AdSense. He took some time off to raise his kids and is now back at Google working on the programming language Go.

Keith has one child at Woodland, Mia in the class of 2022, and one Woodland alumnus at Pinewood, Alex from the class of 2020.

Gary Schofield Headshot

Gary Schofield

Gary Schofield is a seasoned Board Director, CEO, and Operating Executive with 30 years of experience leading both public and private companies. Currently, Gary is Senior Vice President of Merchant Solutions at Fidelity National Information Services (FIS). FIS is a Fortune 250 global leader of financial technology solutions for merchants, banks, and capital markets firms. Schofield has also held executive positions at IBM, Oracle, and Intuit and has led six of his seven private companies to successful exits, resulting in over $1.5B in returns to his shareholders.

Gary has one child at Woodland in the Class of 2025.

 

Pratima Sethi Head Shot

Pratima Sethi

Pratima Sethi is the founder of the fine jewelry brand Sethi Couture. In 2009, she started her own business creating fine jewelry that reflects a woman’s past, celebrates her journey and elevates the everyday. She previously worked in retail operations and merchandising for Louis Vuitton and as an IT Consultant at PwC. Pratima has had prior school board experience serving on Castilleja’s Board of Trustees and was the President of Castilleja’s Alumnae Association. Currently, Pratima serves on the California Regional Board for Girls Leadership.

Pratima earned an MBA from the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business and holds a BS in Business from the University of California Berkeley, Haas School of Business. She co-chairs the Woodland’s DEI Committee as well as serves on the Advancement Committee. Pratima has one child at Woodland, class of 2025 and one child at Castilleja, class of 2027.

Aida Soto Headshot

Aida Soto

Aida Soto served as a Principal at Prudential where she was responsible for managing and investing a portfolio of commercial mortgage assets and securities. Prior to Prudential, Aida worked in Corporate Development at Charles Schwab and was responsible for mergers and acquisitions and strategic investments. She served as the Finance Chair to the Toigo Alumni Endowment Board and continues to be an active volunteer in community organizations. Aida is also a Chartered Financial Analyst Charterholder.

Aida received a BA in Economics from Rutgers University and an MBA from UC Berkeley where she was a Robert Toigo Foundation Fellow. Aida served on the WSPA Board, Advancement Committee and currently serves on the leadership team for the Common Ground Speaker Series. Aida has two children at Woodland, classes of 2021 and 2024, and an alumnus, class of 2018.

Mike Walters Headshot

Michael Walters

Michael Walters currently serves as the Head of Human Resources for Samsung Semiconductor based in San Jose, CA. He leads end-to-end people processes for this $27B business inclusive of talent acquisition, organizational development, compensation, health & welfare and compliance initiatives.  Prior to his tenure with Samsung, Michael was the Chief Human Resources Officer for Genoa Healthcare, the nation’s leading behavioral health specialty pharmacy company with over 550 pharmacies across the United States filling more than 20 million prescriptions per year in service of more than 1,000,000 individuals annually. Michael led all HR initiatives for this fast growing organization. He also successfully led integration work for the 2018 acquisition of Genoa by UnitedHealth Group.  Prior to his tenure with Genoa, Michael served in HR leadership roles in a wide variety of industries to include Roper Technologies, Microsoft, and Nielsen Entertainment. Walters has taught HR management through the University of Washington for twelve years and is a frequent speaker at Society for Human Resource Management events across the country. 

Michael holds an MBA with a concentration in Human Resources Management from Loyola Marymount University and a BS in psychology from University of California, Los Angeles. Michael has one child at Woodland in the Class of 2026.

Lisa Widup

Lisa Widup

Lisa Widup is an intellectual property attorney focused on trademark and copyright law and has practiced exclusively in Silicon Valley over the past 20 years. She began her career at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP where she focused her practice on all stages of trademark and copyright prosecution, counseling, portfolio management, policing, enforcement, and litigation for clients ranging in size from Fortune 500 companies to smaller Bay Area businesses and individuals, domestically and foreign. Lisa then spent 12 years as in-house counsel for Apple Inc., first in the trademark and copyright team where she became responsible for clearance, prosecution, and policing for nearly a third of Apple's trademark portfolio, and then later in the Content and Internet Services legal team where she supported Apple’s iTunes Store, Apple Music, Apple Books/iBooks, and App Store content services, including principle responsibility for handling all pre-litigation IP claims regarding third party content on the services. Lisa also volunteers her time to assist pro bono legal service organizations such as Legal Aid of San Mateo County and Uncommon Law. She is currently Senior Counsel, Trademark & Copyright at Zoom, building and protecting the portfolio for the well-known Zoom software and service.

Lisa received her BA in Psychology and Managerial Studies from Rice University and her JD from University of San Francisco School of Law. She has two children at Woodland who have attended since kindergarten, a daughter in the Class of 2028 and a son in the Class of 2025.

2021-22 Officers and Trustees

Michelle Gabriel, Chair
Sonia Arrison
Sharon Binger
James Brundage
Beth Carr
Sharon Chang
Julie Galles
Mac Harman
Abby Kirigin
Michael Mastrandrea
Karuna Mukherjea
Roel Peeters
Keith Randall
Gary Schofield
Pratima Sethi
Aida Soto
Michael Walters
Lisa Widup
Colleen Falls
WSPA President, non-voting member
Jennifer Warren
Head of School, non-voting member
Woodland School is committed to developing diversity within our community and complies with all federal and state laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, sexual orientation, or handicapped status in the selection of the Board of Trustees, employment of personnel, admission of students, or in the administration of the school’s programming.