Kitchen Cabinet
Deborah Anderson-Bialis
Board Vice President
Deborah Anderson-Bialis is the co-founder of FertilityIQ, an educational platform that helps people navigate all forms of family building. Deborah received a J.D. from University of California Berkeley Law School, and a B.A. from Williams College.
She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two toddlers. Her family joined the Kitchen in 2018 and regularly attends Rabbi Noa's Torah study classes, Shabbat services and Kitchen Playground events.
Eli Bildner
Eli Bildner's experience spans entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and politics. Eli is currently a Senior Director at Guild Education, and a senior advisor at Rivet School, a nonprofit enabling working Californians to earn an accelerated, low-cost bachelor's degree, which he co-founded in 2017.
Previously, Eli led international expansion at Coursera, managed a winning state-level political campaign in Alaska, and launched a social enterprise incubator in China. 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. He lives in El Cerrito with his wife and daughter.
Tommy Collison
Tommy Collison is an Irish, startup person, coder, writer, and pilot-in-training who has been at the intersection of journalism and technology for over a decade. He has shaped communication strategy for nonprofits and startups, and swears he's actually going to finish that book draft on tech policy one of these days.
Born and raised in rural Ireland, he received his BA in journalism and Arabic at New York University. A startup job brought him to the Bay Area, where he promptly fell in love with the nature, the people, and The Kitchen. He's been a proud Kitchen-ite ever since he sat under the sukkah in late 2019, and serves on the Membership Committee. Tommy has previously written about converting for Tablet Magazine and Chosen By Choice.
Shari Freedman
Board Treasurer
Shari Freedman is the Chief Financial Officer of Room to Read, an organization that believes World Change Starts with Educated Children.®
With over 30 years of international finance, non-profit and administrative management experience with companies ranging in size from $35MM - $150B, Shari has a proven track record of success leading finance and legal teams in global organizations with significant scale and complexity. Shari joined Room to Read after a tenure as CFO at One Medical Group, Niman Ranch and Worldwise, Inc. Prior to that, she provided international financial and administrative management to best in class globally branded companies, including Gap, PepsiCo, and GM. Shari was named one of the San Francisco Business Times’ Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business in 2012.
She has chaired the boards of the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank and JVS, the largest workforce development agency in the Bay Area. As an angel investor, she has actively supported startups with a focus on increasing capital for women entrepreneurs. Shari received her MBA from Georgetown University and a BA from American University. Her academic pedigree also includes certifications in The Art of Negotiations, Building Strategic Consensus and Non-Profit Governance at Harvard University.
Jonathan Katzman
Board President
Jonathan Katzman is Director of Product Management for Learning at YouTube. Previously, he was the founding Chief Product Officer at Minerva Project, where he led both development of Minerva’s technology and its partnerships with other universities. Previously, Katzman founded a startup focused on email and personal search that was acquired by Yahoo in 2009. Previously, Katzman built and ran Tellme's directory assistance business in the early 2000's, served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Ignition Corporation and worked at Microsoft on the Office and FrontPage teams. Having contributed to three successful startups, Katzman gives back to the entrepreneurial community through both angel investing and advisory work.
Jonathan 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 Kitchen-ites, having attended services starting the first summer.
Sheena Lister
Born and raised in Calgary Canada, Sheena has always been passionate about building community, doing Jewish and playing sports. She played division I tennis at Northern Arizona University and after a career ending injury, completed her undergraduate degree in video production at Concordia University in Montreal. Twelve years ago she left her heart (and weather) in Calgary, and moved to San Francisco to pursue a Masters Degree in Sport Management at the University of San Francisco.
Sheena then fused her passion for sports and Judaism and went on to establish an 8 year career at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (JCCSF). At the JCCSF she oversaw the largest youth sports program in the Bay Area and designed an award winning program and brand called 'Redefining the Score'. Following her career at the JCCSF Sheena founded a company called Workforce Athletics (WFA) and currently serves as the CEO. The JCCSF will always be a special place for Sheena as it was there she met her wife Amelia (and found out about the Kitchen)!
Amelia and Sheena currently live in San Francisco with their amazing daughter Flo and dogs Oakley and Fenix. Sheena loves "getting down" at Kitchen Shabbats, camping, adventuring, and drinking coffee in bed. Sheena is honored to serve on the Kitchen board and looks forward to continuing to spread the Kitchen love and community to as many people as possible.
Eric Ries
Eric Ries is an entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Business, published by Crown Business.
He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has consulted to new and established companies as well as venture capital firms. In 2010, he was named entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School and is currently an IDEO Fellow. Previously he co-founded and served as CTO of IMVU, his third startup. In 2007, BusinessWeek named him one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech. In 2009, he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. The Lean Startup methodology has been written about in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Inc. (where he appeared on the cover), Wired, Fast Company, and countless blogs. Eric lives in San Francisco.