Governance
GUIDED BY THOSE WHO CARE ABOUT EDUCATION
As an independent school and 501©3 not-for-profit organization, SCDS is governed by a self-perpetuating board of trustees. Most board members are current parents, parents of alumni, or alumni, though membership can include those from the wider community.
The board is responsible for the strategic direction of the school. It oversees SCDS’s financial and fiscal health and hires and evaluates the head of school. Standing committees include diversity, equity, and inclusion; executive; facilities; finance; and governance. The board meets approximately eight times each year.
2023–24 Board of Trustees
- Ryan Schofield, Board President
- Sandra Jerez, Board Vice President
- Catherine Burns Humbert '91, Board Treasurer
- Yi Jenny Xiao, Board Secretary
- Jane Mills, Ad Hoc Executive Com. Member
- Sue Belcher, Board Member
- Brent Binge, Board Member
- Kirsten Camp, Board Member
- John Cerqui, Board Member
- Ryan DiRaimo, Board Member
- Madhu Hosaagrahara, Board Member
- Andrew Hwangbo, Board Member
- Sarah Leung '90, Board Member
- Yousri Omar, Board Member
- Kent Patton, Board Member
- Danna Redmond, Board Member
- Zahlen Titcomb '96, Board Member
- Kimberly A. Zaidberg, Ex Officio Member
Ryan Schofield, Board President
Ryan Schofield was born in Hawaii and raised in Bellevue. He graduated from the Bush School during the grunge era and attended Bucknell University. He is the founder/principal of Aedifex, Inc., a boutique real-estate development and construction firm. Ryan was co-chair of the 2015–2016 SCDS Annual Fund and coached his daughters’ SCDS basketball teams from 2012–2019. His daughters, Emma ’18, and Maddie ’21, now attend the Bush School. When not working or volunteering at SCDS, Ryan can be found golfing, skiing, or attempting to keep up with his wife and girls.
Sandra Jerez, Board Vice President
Sandra Jerez received a B.A. in American history from Columbia University and an M.S. in health policy and management from Harvard University. She’s also served for nine years as chief strategy officer of MDLinx, a DC-based internet healthcare company that was acquired in 2006 by M3 USA, a publicly traded healthcare company. Over the past 10 years, Sandra has focused on raising her children and serving in volunteer leadership positions at their schools and in the Seattle community. At SCDS, she served as the Parent Council president for two years. Currently, Sandra is a director at Water1st International, a Seattle-based non-profit, and lives in Queen Anne with her husband, Patrick, and their three children ’18, ’20, and ’24, all who attend(ed) SCDS.
Catherine Burns Humbert '91, Board Treasurer
Catherine Burns Humbert ’91 is an alumna of SCDS and Lakeside School. She received a B.A. in Economics from Pomona College. While studying abroad in Strasbourg, France, she attended the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and met her husband, Olivier. They are the parents of two SCDS students (’22 and ’26). Together, Catherine and Olivier chaired the SCDS Annual Fund in 2018–2019. Catherine has been a longtime member of the investment committee for the Seattle/King County YWCA and several advisory boards for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Catherine is vice president at Goldman Sachs Personal Financial Management. She holds the designations of chartered financial analyst and certified financial planner.
Yi Jenny Xiao, Board Secretary
Yi Jenny Xiao is a social psychologist by training. She received a B.A. in psychology and a B.A. in biology from Bard College in New York in 2010 and completed a Ph.D. in social psychology at New York University in 2016. Since then, Jenny has been a faculty member at several colleges/universities, including Macalester College (Minnesota), Hofstra University (New York), and now the University of Washington, Tacoma. Jenny is broadly interested in how identities shape our perception, attitudes, and behaviors, and has been designing/offering courses in stereotyping prejudice and discrimination, attitudes and persuasion, and Asian American psychology. Jenny’s family has been part of the SCDS community since 2020, when her daughter, Amber, started as a kindergartener. In the past two years, Jenny has been actively engaged in the school community, volunteering in various roles such as class rep, speaker for the RIPPLES series, and so on. Jenny is passionate about education, particularly educational equity. She has been serving on the executive committee, as well as volunteering as a mentor, for Minds Matter Seattle — an organization preparing accomplished high-school students from low-income families for college success. Jenny lives with her family in Bellevue and is an avid reader in her spare time.
Jane Mills, Ad Hoc Executive Com. Member
Jane Mills, a Seattle native, serves as the finance advisor to the board of Tillamook County Creamery and as the chair of its finance and audit committee. After she received a B.A. in history from Whitman College and an MBA in finance/accounting from the University of Chicago, Jane worked for HJ Heinz and PepsiCo and returned to Seattle, where she spent 20 years as the CFO for the Starbucks/Pepsi joint venture. She and her husband, Dan, live in the Green Lake neighborhood with their daughter, Katie (SCDS ’18). Jane has served on various community boards, including the audit committee at the Seattle Foundation and on the board of the Seattle Shakespeare Company; she also volunteers as a math tutor at Seattle World School.
Sue Belcher, Board Member
Sue Belcher is the founding head of The Downtown School: A Lakeside School. She led the research and development of this innovative high school, which uniquely equips students to ask important questions, generate creative solutions, and act from a sense of agency to implement their ideas — all key skills to attaining goals in education and in life. The school uses the city as a lab for learning. Sue has teaching and administrative leadership experience in independent, public, and international schools. Originally from the Midwest, Sue holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master’s in library and information science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She lives in West Seattle with her husband, Joe, and her two children, Brody and Charlie.
Brent Binge, Board Member
Brent Binge is general counsel and chief compliance officer at Steelhead Partners, LLC, an investment adviser and private fund manager. Prior to joining Steelhead, he was a director in the legal department of BlackRock, Inc. (formerly Quellos Group LLC), where he started as an associate general counsel in 2004. He began his legal career at the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, where he focused on securities and investment adviser regulatory advice, private placements, and corporate legal matters. Brent graduated from the University of Puget Sound and received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. At SCDS, he co-chaired the school’s carnival in 2017 and 2018. He lives in the Eastlake neighborhood in Seattle with his wife, Tara, and their son, Henry ’22.
Kirsten Camp, Board Member
Kirsten Camp has served in almost every independent school role — from teacher, to administrator, to student, to parent, to volunteer — and continues to synthesize her prior experience and apply it to SCDS. Kirsten spent her K–12 school years in two independent schools. She graduated from Brown University with a dual concentration in educational studies and philosophy. Kirsten holds an M.Ed. in early childhood and elementary education from Bank Street College of Education, and she worked at her alma mater, The Chapin School, as an assistant kindergarten teacher (three years) and later as a head kindergarten teacher (four years). While at Chapin, she also spent two years as director of lower school admissions. She is now the managing director of Harvard Avenue School (a local preschool), where she has worked from July 2007 to the present. Kirsten has been an active SCDS parent volunteer over the years. In addition to volunteering often at the classroom level, she chaired the New Family Committee for several years and served as Parent Council president for two years. Kirsten was the vice president of the board for the 2017–2018 school year, chaired the Advancement Committee for two years, co-chaired the Head of School Search Committee, and served as board president from 2018–2020. Kirsten's daughters are members of the SCDS classes of ’17 and ’19.
John Cerqui, Board Member
John Cerqui is a native of Seattle, Washington, and a resident of Queen Anne. He majored in business at Pepperdine University before obtaining a law degree from Fordham University and a master’s in tax law (an LL.M.) from New York University. After clerking for a judge and working in the private sector at a Seattle law firm, he joined the in-house legal department at Seattle Public Schools in 1997. In his role as deputy general counsel, he is responsible for advising the school board, superintendent, and administrative staff on a range of educational and administrative issues, including budget, curriculum adoption, department reviews, employment matters, student discipline, facilities and operations, contracts, and litigation management. He has also been elected to other nonprofit boards, most recently the Network for Excellence in Washington Schools’ board, the group that coordinated the landmark lawsuit against the State of Washington for underfunding public education. John is the parent of an SCDS graduate (Andrew ’17) and served as the chair and co-chair of the SCDS Adopt a Street Committee for three years.
Ryan DiRaimo, Board Member
Ryan DiRaimo is a project designer and sustainability lead at Graphite Design Group, an architecture firm specializing in residential, commercial, retail, and mixed-use projects. Professionally, Ryan's career focuses on the architectural design for projects in Seattle’s downtown core.
Ryan’s passion for creating safe and equitable communities has led him to volunteer within his community with advocacy groups, including ALUV and the Aurora Reimagined Coalition. As a member of ALUV, he worked with the city council to rezone large areas of Highway 99, from light industrial to residential mixed-use, an effort that will bring thousands of homes to his neighborhood. As a founding member of the Aurora Reimagined Coalition, Ryan works with this grassroots organization of neighbors to improve the quality and safety of Highway 99 through design improvements.
Originally from Houston, Ryan received undergraduate and master’s degrees in architecture from Texas Tech University (’06 and ’08). It was here that he developed his passion for the built environment, sustainability, and urban design. After a professional trip, Ryan fell in love with Seattle and packed his bags the first chance he got, relocating to the Emerald City. Since then, he has never looked back and always looks at ways to improve upon Seattle's urban design and built environment.
Ryan is a contributing writer to The Urbanist, taking the voice of community to a public venue. His writing has been featured in both The Urbanist and The Seattle Times, where he communicates upon a range of topics, including adding housing, diversifying land use, and expanding on sustainable transportation.
When not working in his community, at his job, or spending quality time with his family, you can find Ryan on the ice, continuing his lifelong passion for hockey. He enjoys spending time with his wonderful family in Greenwood, taking the kids on his e-bike or bus to various parks and coffee shops all over the city. Ryan’s wife, Cyanna, is on the Parent Council and volunteers as a first-grade mom, cultivating SCDS with her experiences as a child of Africa. Their daughter is a student in SCDS’s Lower School, class of ’30.
Madhu Hosaagrahara, Board Member
Madhu (sudan Hosaagrahara) grew up in Hyderabad, India, and received his B.Tech (Hon.) from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India. He received an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Drexel University in Philadelphia. He has lived in Seattle since 2006 and loves it here. His professional career has taken him to several companies, including Google, Facebook, and, more recently, the TradeDesk, with work spanning search, ads, Android, and infrastructure tools, with an emphasis on leading teams and helping organizations and processes adapt. His two children, Aadi ’28 and Aadhya ’30, are thriving and eagerly look forward to attending school every day. Madhu has served as a Parent Council representative, a Camp Orkila circle leader, a member of the Annual Fund team, and a parent ambassador, and he has helped with a number of other community-building events.
Andrew Hwangbo, Board Member
Andrew Hwangbo received his M.S. in civil engineering and his MBA from the University of Washington and Seattle University, respectively. Andrew spent the last 17 years with the Microsoft Corporation and currently leads a technical PM team in Azure. He has served, with his wife Yoo-Lee, as class representatives for the school’s Annual Fund for multiple years. The Hwangbo family lives in Madison Park with their children AJ, ’21 and Alex, ’25.
Sarah Leung '90, Board Member
Sarah Leung ’90 is the parent of an SCDS alumnus (’21) and an SCDS middle school student (’26). She has served in a number of roles on the SCDS Board of Trustees, including vice president, secretary, and immediate past Governance Committee chair. Previously, Sarah served for eight years on the board of directors of the Denise Louie Education Center, a multicultural early learning and family support organization for low-income families. She is general counsel at Wyze Labs, Inc., and received her J.D. from Duke University and her B.A. in American studies from Williams College.
Yousri Omar, Board Member
Yousri Omar is a director and associate general counsel at Amazon, where he leads the global business conduct and ethics team. Currently, Yousri manages a team of about 40 worldwide. He has been with Amazon for eight years. Before Amazon, Yousri was a litigator in Washington, D.C., with the firm of Vinson & Elkins. He started his career as a law clerk for the Hon. Michael F. Urbanski in Roanoke, Virginia. Yousri received a B.S. in finance and a B.A. in international studies from Virginia Tech and a law degree from Washington and Lee University.
Yousri has always had a penchant for community service and work. During his undergraduate years, he worked with underserved immigrant families in the Roanoke area. During law school, he helped serve the community as a volunteer income tax preparer for low-income families. After Hurricane Katrina, Yousri mobilized law firm donations to fund a spring break trip for 25 law students to travel to New Orleans to provide legal assistance and manual labor to nonprofits working to rebuild the city. During his time at his law firm, Yousri maintained an active pro bono practice and was an officer of the Bar Association of D.C. In that capacity, he helped run legal clinics for people in need in southeast D.C. He was also a co-chair of the annual Equal Justice Campaign for the Legal Aid Society of D.C. In 2021, Yousri co-chaired the annual Servants of Justice award dinner for the Legal Aid Society of D.C., which raised $1.45 million.
Turning to his time at Amazon, Yousri has been involved with pro bono work from day one. Most of his work has been focused on his relationship with Mary’s Place. Starting in 2017, Yousri partnered with K&L Gates, a local law firm, to establish a legal clinic for guests and to provide legal services to the organization. Pre-pandemic, the clinics were conducted in-person, with a quarterly clinic at the day center and one additional quarterly clinic at a rotating site around King County. At the beginning of the pandemic, Yousri helped the team pivot to a weekly virtual clinic model, which still runs today on a more limited basis. Yousri is looking forward to a return to in-person clinics in 2023 in order to maximize impact and assistance to Mary’s Place guests. In 2020 alone, the team provided over 700 hours of pro bono service to Mary’s Place. In addition to his efforts on the pro bono side, Yousri co-chaired the 2021 and 2022 Dream Big Luncheons, raising $2.3 million and $2.1 million respectively. Yousri is a member of the board of directors of Mary’s Place.
Yousri is the proud father of two boys, Cal (7) and Caden (4). Cal is a first-grader at SCDS, where he has flourished. Yousri has coached the venerable Wildcats for two years in row in soccer. He has also volunteered time in the classroom, most recently to host an event where the kids made snack packs for disadvantaged youth at Mary’s Place.
Kent Patton, Board Member
Kent Patton has had a diverse career in both international and domestic public affairs, focusing on the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and policymaking in Washington, D.C., and Washington state. Kent has worked with presidents, prime ministers, party leaders, mayors, and non-profit organizations in areas as diverse as strategic planning, international relations, communications, crisis management, and governance.
Kent currently serves as founder and CEO of Patton & Associates, a consulting firm focused on international affairs and democracy promotion. He has worked with multiple U.S.-based and international clients in Europe, Asia, Africa, and across the Middle East.
In 2007, Kent was appointed deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Kent’s specific duties included managing the G-8’s Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative for the U.S. government, entailing extensive diplomatic negotiations among the G-8 members and with governments of the broader Middle East and North Africa. Kent also managed the Middle East Partnership Initiative, an effort to advance economic, educational, and political reforms, as well as the empowerment of women. Kent also co-led the strategic dialogue with Saudi Arabia.
Prior to joining the State Department, Kent ran USAID-funded democracy-promotion programs in Kabul, Afghanistan, and the West Bank/Gaza. While in Kabul, Kent worked with President Hamid Karzai on the first presidential election in modern Afghan history. In Ramallah, he worked with independent democratic leaders during the first legitimate presidential election in Arab history.
Kent has also managed democracy-promotion programs in all countries in Central and Eastern Europe, with particular focus on the Balkans.
In addition to international consulting, Kent is the communications manager for a local elected official and serves on the board of advisors for the Slade Gorton International Policy Center. He has two kids attending Seattle Country Day School, and they tend to monopolize his spare time.
Danna Redmond, Board Member
Danna Redmond is a start-up advisor and strategy consultant with Mohair Consulting. Danna is an entrepreneur at heart, having started multiple companies after a 17-year career at Microsoft that spanned a variety of leadership roles in online advertising, customer services and support, information technology, and human resources. Danna is mom to an SCDS alumnus, Cole ’20. She has been active in the SCDS community as chair of the 2017 “World of Pure Imagination” Auction, as a parent grade representative, as a member of the leadership council for the Annual Fund, and as chair of the Book Swap. She also coached FLL (First Lego League) teams for two years. Danna’s nonprofit involvement includes serving as board chair and board secretary for Home Step, now part of Compass Housing, and serving on a Children’s Hospital guild. Danna currently serves on the board of trustees for Chi Omega Foundation, is on the national alumnae connections team for Chi Omega and is an advisor to the collegiate chapter at the University of Washington. She holds a bachelor’s degree in human resource management from Utah State University and an MBA from Seattle University.
Zahlen Titcomb '96, Board Member
Zahlen Titcomb ’96 is an SCDS alumnus and possesses degrees from the University of Chicago in economics, Italian literature, and international studies. After a brief stint in finance and healthcare consulting in Beijing, he and his siblings founded Five Ultimate, a sports apparel company serving the Ultimate frisbee community. The siblings later started several other businesses in the Ultimate sphere, including the All-Star Ultimate Tour, the Seattle Cascades, and ARIA Discs. Zahlen serves as CEO of Regenerated Textiles, building distributed technology for clothing recycling. He has served on the board of several foundations and has completed studies at THNK.org, the Amsterdam School for Creative Leadership.
Kimberly A. Zaidberg, Ex Officio Member
Kimberly A. Zaidberg has been the head of Seattle Country Day School since July 2018. In this time, she has launched a new-teacher training program, an electives program in the Middle School, a band program for grades 4–8, and an associate teacher program in the Lower School.
At present, Ms. Zaidberg is leading a multi-year strategic plan to attract and retain families and faculty of color in the SCDS community and has advanced inquiry-based and DEI-focused learning for the gifted children the school serves.
Ms. Zaidberg has more than 25 years of experience in education. She received a B.A. in sociology from Oberlin College and a master’s degree in education (curriculum and teaching) from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Teamwork is crucial to raise the next generation of listeners, thinkers, and problem solvers — those who will enrich our society's narrative.
Kirsten Camp, Board MEMBer