ARI ALEXANDER is a Senior Director at Salesforce in Global Business Planning and Strategy.  He has been at the company for 5 years. Prior to that, Ari served as Senior Advisor to the Administrator and Director at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  Ari also served as a Senior Fellow with the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He was a co-founder and co-Executive Director of Children of Abraham, an international organization dedicated to the promotion of dialogue between Jewish and Muslim teenagers around the world. He has presented and lectured about international development and interfaith cooperation all over the world. 

He completed two Master’s degrees in the United Kingdom as a Marshall Scholar: an M.A. in Comparative Ethnic Conflict from the Queen’s University of Belfast and an M.Phil. in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford. Ari’s research led him to spend time living in Jerusalem, Beirut, and Damascus. Born and raised in Providence, RI, Ari is a Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots fan, and enjoys biking and skiing.  He was a national leader in USY, a Camp Ramah regular and raised by a synagogue president, a Hillel Director and a Jewish federation executive (all of whom were his Mom).

ELI BILDNER's experience spans entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and politics. As an early employee at Coursera, Eli helped drive the company's international expansion. Eli has also led strategy projects for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Bloomberg Philanthropies, managed a winning state-level political campaign in Alaska, and launched a social enterprise incubator in China. Most recently, Eli is Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director of Rivet School, a nonprofit enabling working Californians to earn an accelerated, low-cost bachelor's degree.

Eli is active in California politics as a chapter lead for Govern for California, and writes regularly on education and China for EdSurge, Inside Higher Ed, and The Atlantic, among other outlets. Eli holds a BA from Yale, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

JOCELYN BLUMENROSE has worked as a manager and engineer at startups for the last decade. She spent five years at Facebook, where she started the risk management team, and then moved to Stripe, a company that is working to create a new standard for online payments. She worked in a number of different areas at Stripe, including analytics, data engineering, and machine learning. She also helped develop Stripe’s original set of company values and operating philosophy. Jocelyn grew up in East Central Illinois. After receiving her BA in Psychology from Stanford, she found she had no desire to leave the Bay Area and has been around ever since. She and her husband, Ben, have been Kitchen regulars since they first attended a holiday at the Kitchen in late 2014. She joined the Kitchen Finance Committee in 2016.

MATHEW CHASAN CALMER is a pioneer in wearable technology and connected devices. He is an instructor and student mentor at Hack Reactor, a San Francisco based software engineering school, and runs a software and embedded devices consultancy, The Big Incredible. Mathew is motivated by simple practices to bring spirituality into daily routine, and brings this to his work in and out of the Kitchen. He has served on the Kitchen Finance Committee since 2012 and currently acts as Treasurer.

SHARI FREEDMAN has over 25 years of international finance, non-profit and administrative management experience with companies ranging in size from $35MM - $150B.  Prior to joining Room to Read six years ago, she served as CFO at Niman Ranch, Worldwise, Inc. and most recently with One Medical Group – all for-profit companies with important social missions.  Prior to that, she provided international corporate finance and administrative management to best in class global branded companies, including Gap, PepsiCo and GM.  She was one of the San Francisco Business Times’ Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business in 2012.  Shari’s non-profit experience includes serving on a multitude of nonprofit boards in SF and NY as well as chairing the boards of the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank and JVS (Jewish Vocational Service). She is an active angel investor and supporter of startups with a particular focus on increasing capital for women entrepreneurs.  Her academic pedigree includes courses at Harvard, an MBA from Georgetown and a BA from American University.

JONATHAN KATZMAN is Chief Product Officer at Minerva, where he leads development of the technology used to provide exceptional learning experiences at high schools to universities to corporations. A veteran of technology startups, Katzman founded a startup that was acquired by Yahoo! in 2009 and was part of Tellme Networks (sold to Microsoft) and Vermeer Technologies (creators of Microsoft FrontPage). Having contributed to three successful startups, Katzman gives back to the entrepreneurial community through both angel investing and advisory work. Katzman grew up one town south of Rabbi Kushner in Massachusetts, but unfortunately did not attend her dad’s shul. He earned a B.A. in Computer Science from Harvard University, and more recently completed his Wexner Heritage Fellowship. He lives in Cole Valley with his wife and two sons. The Katzman family are OG Kitchenites, having attended services starting the first summer.

JEFF LAWSON is the CEO and Co-Founder of Twilio, a serial inventor with over 15 years of entrepreneurial and product experience. Prior to co-founding Twilio, Jeff was Founder & CTO of NineStar, Founding CTO of Stubhub.com and Founder, CEO & CTO of Versity. He was also one of the original product managers for Amazon Web Services. At every business, Jeff identified the fundamental need for a platform for developers and companies to easily build communications-based business solutions. Jeff grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, started his first company in middle school, and earned his BS in Computer Science & Film/Video from University of Michigan.

ZAHAVAH LEVINE is currently a DCI Fellow at Stanford University, focusing on voting rights and related issues.  This marks a new path, as Zahavah’s career has focused on innovation in the law and business of digital music and media.  She was the first lawyer and General Counsel of YouTube. After helping sell YouTube to Google in 2006, she stayed on with Google for 12.5 years, in three different roles.  First, as Chief Counsel of YouTube & Associate General Counsel of Google, she oversaw music licensing, copyright and rights-management policies, and helped develop YouTube’s landmark Content ID platform.  Next, as VP Partnerships, she helped launch Google Play Music (Google’s music service) and managed the global partnerships required for the licensing and distribution of the service.  Most recently, she managed Android’s partnerships with wireless carriers in North America.  Prior to YouTube, Zahavah helped develop the licensing model for Listen.com’s Rhapsody, the first streaming music on-demand subscription service, and later served as Director of Music Licensing & Associate General Counsel for RealNetworks, Inc.  In her music roles Zahavah was active in public policy and licensing reform, and was recognized with awards from Billboard Magazine, Hollywood Reporter and Digital Media Wire.

Zahavah graduated Order of the Coif from Berkeley Law School and received her BA in History from Brown University.  She clerked for federal judges on the Ninth Circuit and the Northern District of CA. She is married to Jeff Meyer and thrilled to be discovering and practicing Jewish life and spirituality with the Kitchen community.

MOLLY SELTZER grew up on a beef-cattle farm in the Allegheny Mountains. She graduated from the University of Virginia and from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and worked as an editor at Bloomberg News before transitioning to internal communications roles at J.P. Morgan and Google. She currently writes for Google’s General Counsel and their Legal, Policy, Trust & Safety and Google.org organizations.Molly’s Big Life Goals include moving to Madrid and (finally) getting her young-adult novel published. She is active in the veterans' rights community and likes baking, slapstick comedy and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

JEFF SILVER is a Senior Legal Counsel at PayPal.  He was previously a middle school special education teacher in Brooklyn, a mergers and acquisitions lawyer in New York and San Francisco, and an attorney and operations director at LendingClub.  He received a BA in Anthropology and History from UNC-Chapel Hill, an MSEd in Adolescent Special Education from Long Island University, and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania.  Jeff is active in the Kitchen's Justice League, an avid follower of politics, a poor speaker of German, and a devoted fan of his hometown Kansas City Royals.  He lives in the Castro.