Board of Directors

Steve Hoffman

Steve Hoffman is Vice President and Chief of Staff at TIBCO Software, a privately held $1B global software company. As a member of the executive leadership team, he’s responsible for strategic planning, staff operations, and executive communications. Prior to TIBCO, Steve had a 25-year career at Hewlett-Packard Company, where he held leadership roles across a range of functions including strategy, product management, business operations, branding, marketing communications and executive communications. His diverse experience, working with multiple stakeholders, has reinforced his belief that effective leadership is built on clear thinking and clear communications. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in English literature with an emphasis in creative writing from Stanford University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. An avid cyclist, he logs over 2,000 miles a year on his bike. For the past two years, he’s been a member of Bad Cookies, a Palo Alto-based improvisational acting troupe.

Tony Rangel

Tony Rangel is Sr. Strategic Marketing Director at Celestica, a global electronics manufacturing services company with $6 billion in annual revenue. In this role he helps develop plans for targeting new markets and customers, delivering commercial insights to improve their business and create competitive advantage. Tony’s experience spans 30+ years working in various Marketing roles in the electronics industry. He is driven by a keen sense of curiosity, the excitement of growing a business, and working with amazing people who aspire to do great things. Outside of Celestica, Tony strives to be of service in his community, where he’s particularly interested in helping underserved people overcome obstacles and achieve their goals. Tony and his husband are adoptive parents of former foster children, twin boys, who are now young, productive adults. Tony holds a B.S. in Economics from the University of San Francisco and an MBA from Saint Mary’s of California. He is also a member of the American Marketing Association and San Jose – Silicon Valley Leadership Council.

Arlene Chan

Arlene Chan is an Audit Partner at Moss Adams LLP.  Arlene has practiced public accounting since 1993 and she is a member of Moss Adams’ Technology, Communications, and Life Sciences Practice.  Arlene primarily works with computer hardware, biotechnology, pharmaceutical drug discovery, and medical device companies. She consults clients in the application and implementation of new accounting policies and technical guidance in compliance with SEC, SOX 404, and US GAAP requirements. In addition, she has led numerous initial and subsequent public offerings and merger and acquisition activities including due diligence, and related accounting and SEC reporting. Before joining Moss Adams, Arlene spent 14 years with Ernst & Young in the San Francisco Bay Area, including a global rotation of two years with Ernst & Young in Singapore.  She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the California Society of Certified Public Accountants, and has a BA in political economy of industrial societies from the University of California at Berkeley.

Leslie Rodriguez

Leslie Rodriguez is a partner at California Strategies, LLC and is based in the Silicon Valley.  She is a veteran in public policy having served in both the public and private sector over her 20-year career. She worked in State Government as Governor Schwarzenegger’s Deputy Director of External Affairs and Communications, and prior to that she served as the Chief of Staff to the Superintendent of the Alum Rock Union Elementary School District.  She has extensive experience across the legislative, executive, and regulatory branches of government at multiple levels of government. Since joining California Strategies as a partner, she has focused her public affairs work on advancing education, housing access and public welfare in her community. She holds a Master of Social Work with a concentration in social policy research from San Jose State University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Economics.

Penny Blake

Penny Blake is a retired Supervising Attorney from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.  Penny has represented foster children in the dependency court for many years and has been a supporter of Child Advocates from our inception nearly 30 years ago.

Kathryne Faherty

Having been born in South Korea and raised by Irish Americans in the city that is home to the Boston Celtics, you could say that Kate has truly been around the world and is now proud to call Silicon Valley her home. Kathryne (Kate) Faherty is one of four children adopted by an amazing couple who dedicated their lives to raising their family and to their careers in educating children to their fullest potential. Kate attended Bentley University and graduated with a degree in economics. Her career spans leadership roles at AppDynamics, Cisco, eBay and most recently at Rubrik. Shortly after college, Kate bought a one way plane ticket to South Korea with the intent of living there for a year and immersing herself in Korean culture. Following in her parent’s footsteps, Kate became an educator in Korea and taught English as a second language at an elementary school. Observing her students’ drive to achieve academically within a culture that inspired and reinforced challenge, Kate felt the need to continue to ignite that spark in children within her own community. When she returned to the United States, she involved herself in the No Child Left Behind Program and is now a CASA for Child Advocates of Silicon Valley. Kate, as one who seeks to challenge herself in many ways, is an avid runner and a Boston Marathon qualifier. She dabbles in golf, languages, piano and throughout all aspects of her life, the pursuit of better for herself and others.

Monique Edmondson

Monique Edmondson has helped transform the future of work for 74,000 Cisco employees worldwide. As Cisco’s Senior Director, Employee Experience (EX), she innovates employee-facing technology experiences that enable teams to scale and grow. During her 25-year journey with Cisco, she has held leadership positions in the Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America regions, managing high-performing teams in hybrid, remote and office environments. Monique heads up the largest Employee Resource Organization at Cisco and serves as a pillar of Cisco’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) community. She has been recognized for leadership and EX innovation by the Silicon Valley Business Journal, Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

Jeannette Guinn

Jeannette Guinn currently leads the Demand Generation Marketing team at Cadence Design Systems. As a member of the marketing leadership team, Jeannette is responsible for driving global field marketing, events, lead generation, account based marketing and customer experience. Jeannette’s experience includes a 20 year career in B2B tech marketing, owning a floral business, and performing with various cover bands across the Bay Area. She also volunteered as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) to a foster child for five years. Jeannette earned her Bachelor of Arts in English and Sociology from the University of California, Davis.

Vik Ghai

Vik Ghai is Co-Founder, CTO, Board Member at Quantum Secure (now part of HID Global). Vik is an entrepreneur, adviser, investor in technology, security, consumer focused companies as well as GP in a venture fund. Vik led Quantum Secure’s rapid growth from a concept to a global company creating a new product category in physical security industry, generated year-over-year revenue growth while securing some of the most important places on earth. Quantum Secure was acquired by Assa Abloy (STO: ASSA-B) in 2015 and merged in with HID Global. Earlier, Vik Co-founded Mokume Software (acquired by Versant), Co-founded RapidReceipt, built technology solutions at BDM International (now part of Northrop Grumman), Checkpoint Systems, Smithkline Beecham (now part of GSK). Vik has authored numerous technical papers, articles on cross section between security, business, technology and people. Vik holds patents for inventions in these areas. Vik earned MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University at Evanston, IL and Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Drexel University at Philadelphia, PA.

Stephanie Peng

Stephanie Peng is CFO for Transcarent, a health and care experience company for employees of self-insured employers and their families. Peng is a proven business leader and finance executive with more than two decades of experience leading and scaling category winners in the digital health and technology industries. Prior to joining Transcarent, Peng served as the CFO for U.S. at Teladoc Health, where she was the financial strategist and steward for four businesses with a combined $2 billion in annual revenues. Previously, she was Senior Vice President of Finance at Livongo Health, where she played a key leadership role in the largest consumer digital health IPO in history, a secondary offering, a convertible debt offering raising over $550 million, and Livongo’s $18.5 billion merger with Teladoc Health. She was also CFO at Vida Health, where she led a venture capital round to scale the company’s platform, and Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer at Upwork, where she led a transformational merger and prepared the company for its IPO.

Michael Schlemmer

Michael Schlemmer is a partner of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.  He counsels businesses on all aspects of their employment law needs. Mr. Schlemmer also defends clients in US federal and state courts and arbitration on class, collective, representative, and single-plaintiff employment litigation matters. His practice includes wage and hour class and collective actions, and discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, breach of contract, and leave issues. In addition, he handles employment-related aspects of mergers and acquisitions, and provides training on employment law compliance. Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Michael served as an associate in the labor and employment practice of Wilson Sonsini, where he delivered litigation, counseling, transactional, and training services to high-tech and life science companies. While at Wilson Sonsini, Michael served as Child Advocates pro bono legal attorney.  Michael has a BA from UC Santa Cruz and JD from UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law.  Before law school, he spent five years as a social worker helping foster youth through the emancipation process.

Rosie Tichener

Rosie Tichener leads the Business Planning and Execution Office at McAfee, a global leader in online protection. In this role, she is responsible for technology services program management, vendor management, technology services financial support and supporting risk and threat compliance efforts. Rosie has been working in the cybersecurity industry for over 15 years. Rosie is a strong advocate for foster children and is deeply committed to being part of an amazing organization that is positively impacting change for foster children and young adults by creating and expanding programs and resources and matching a foster child with a CASA volunteer to help them by being their advocate. Rosie is also a current CASA volunteer for foster children.  Rosie loves science and tech.  In her current career, her mission is to empower individuals and families to enjoy a safer online life, including protecting them from cyber threats like viruses. As an undergrad, she majored in molecular biology, earning a Bachelor of Science from San Jose State University and the study in this area also included viruses; however, of a different nature.  She continuously strives to learn and is forever curious and willing to explore and learn new things every day. In her spare time, she enjoys being outdoors; at the beach, hiking, snowboarding, biking around her neighborhood, gardening or cooking something delicious to share with friends.

Frederick J. Ferrer

Frederick J. Ferrer has over three decades of leadership in mobilizing stakeholders and staff toward change through groundbreaking nonprofit and public policy initiatives, programs and systems reforms. Prior to becoming CEO of Child Advocates, Ferrrer founded and led Manzanita Solutions, where he provided consultation on public health, early childhood, non-profit management, and systems reform. Before that, he served for nine years as CEO at the Health Trust, a $100 million foundation, which provides health services, grants, and drives policy to improve community health. Frederick is the former Executive Director of Estrella Family Services and was chair of the FIRST 5 Santa Clara County Commission. He is a member and immediate past chair of Santa Clara University’s (SCU) College of Arts and Sciences Leadership Advisory Board and chaired the University’s Presidential Blue Ribbon Commission on Diversity and Inclusion. He is the former chair of the Rocketship Public Schools board and is a member of the Children’s Discovery Museum LGBTQ Advisory Board. He recently chaired the City of San Jose’s Charter Review Commission. 

Throughout his career, Frederick has received numerous awards including: ALF-SV’s John Gardner Leadership Award, the Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission’s Human Relations Award, and PACT’s Community Builder Award. He is a SCU Dean’s Executive Professor of Public Health and was an instructor in Santa Clara County Office of Education’s Special Education EPIC program. For over 30 years, he served on the adjunct child development faculty at De Anza College.  He has completed two distinguished programs at Harvard University: The Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations, and Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management. He also completed the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Dr. Ferrer holds a B.S. degree from Santa Clara University, a M.S. degree from San Jose State University, and an honorary Doctorate of Public Service from Santa Clara University.