Marjorie Schlenoff, Founder
In private practice in San Francisco, Marjorie is a psychoanalyst with over 30 years of experience treating individuals, couples, and groups. Marjorie has served as chairperson of the Program Committee of the NCSPP; Board Member of the Psychoanalytic Association WCSPP; and on the Advisory Council of Planned Parenthood of America. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Maryland and has a Masters of Social Work from Columbia University, with a Certificate in Psychoanalysis from Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, White Plains, New York.
Larry Schlenoff, Founder
Larry has extensive experience at all levels of financial and general management with senior executive experience at: the North Peninsula Jewish Campus (CEO), Semio Corporation (COO), Zitel Corp (CFO), and IBM (various executive positions). Larry has served on various boards including: ETEC (a semiconductor equipment manufacturer), Kehillah Jewish Day School, the Mental Health Association of Westchester, the Lincolndale Guidance Clinic, the Foundation for Religion and Mental Health, the Children’s Psychological Trauma Center, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He has an MBA in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University.
Michael W. Adler
Michael relocated to San Francisco from New York in the late 70’s and has been engaged in the construction industry all of his working life. In 1983 he joined a local firm, Apersey Construction and became its President and COO in 1988. In 1995 Michael formed Cannon Constructors North, Inc. with three partners. Michael is licensed as a General Contractor in the State of California. Michael holds nine years of board leadership in the Bay Area. Past positions include: Peninsula Temple Beth El, Jewish Home of San Francisco, Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life, Moldaw Family Residences, and the Coastal Repertory Theatre. He currently holds three other boards positions with the Kehillah Jewish High School, Jewish Senior Living Group, and the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation. Within the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation, he has been on the Capital Planning Committee for eleven years and the Board of Governors for six. Since 2000 Michael, his wife Martha, and daughters Sarah and Hannah have lived in Half Moon Bay. They are long term congregants and actively engaged in Temple life at Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo. In 2013 Michael received the Trustee of the Year Award from Aging Services of California.
Edward Collins
Born in San Francisco, California, Edward “Chip” Collins attended Howard University College of Medicine and served internships at Mt Zion Hospital and Medical Center and at UCSF. Since 1976 he has been continuously in private practice in San Francisco. Presently he is a partner and shareholder in Golden Gate Urology and Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Urology at the University of California San Francisco. Chip is a member of the International Green Light User Group (IGLU) and a member of the American Urology Association select committee on male circumcision. As a member of this committee, his duties include performing male circumcision in several of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), vetting sites in various countries of SSA to assure their preparedness to accept volunteer urologists to perform male circumcision and serving as a member of the team which presents a program at the annual meeting of the American Urology Association to discuss cultural sensitivity, methods of circumcision and why circumcision is a long-term strategy for control of the heterosexual transmission of HIV/AIDS. As a member of this committee, he has traveled to Uganda, Swaziland, Namibia and Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa.
John Gilmour
As a social entrepreneurial activist, John Gilmour has researched, piloted, and scaled the LEAP holistic educational development program for economically marginalized African children living in townships and rural spaces in South Africa. John has worked on integrating the neglected skills of social and emotional learning to pivot the general South African pedagogy for the STEM secondary cognitive learning curriculum. John developed, piloted, and replicated this new LEAP learning method over 17 years, in which youth performed substantially better than public or private schools in national testing. The LEAP method focuses on self-liberation reflected in the legacies of Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela. His present focus includes piloting the Leap methodology into numerous Sub-Saharan national educational systems through a LEAP Teachers Institute and pilot projects. The LEAP active learning projects include carbon sequestration through endemic forest restoration and water monitoring for townships’ citizens’ health programs.
John has a history of leading schools in private and public education in South Africa and founding the LEAP process of consciousness-liberated STEM learning. John has also co-founded a number of other organizations improving the educational outcomes for African children living in resource-poor communities through collaboration, networking, and peer-learning: Bridge co-founded with Dr. Mamphela Ramphele linking and replicating educational innovation; co-founded the South African Extraordinary Schools Coalition; founder and executive chairperson of the Global Teachers Institute.
John is a COVID 19 adviser to the South African Education Department with a particular focus on Schools of the Future, an Ashoka fellow, a member of the international BMW responsible leaders’ fellowship, a member of the USA Club of Rome, and a foreign member of Botanical Society of the Americas. John is also a full member of the International Club of Rome.
Andrew Kowal
Andrew is a Partner at Francisco Partners, a technology-focused private equity firm with approximately $7 billion of capital under management. He focuses primarily on investments in the hardware and systems sectors, with a specific emphasis on the semiconductor and communications industries. Prior to joining the firm in 2001, he served as a Member at Princes Gate Investors where he was responsible for the identification, evaluation, and execution of private equity transactions in a variety of industries. He serves on the Board of Directors of Mitel Networks, and previously served on the Board of Directors of ADERANT, MagnaChip, and Metrologic. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Economics with a Finance concentration from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Maureen Murphy
Maureen has been involved in health care and education for her entire career. She has founded several local psychoanalytic training organizations: including the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California where she continues to play an important role and NCSPP, the local chapter of the APA Division of Psychoanalysis. She has also played prominent roles in national and international organizations such as the International Psychoanalytic Association in which she represented North America as a Board member. Maureen describes her visit to the LEAP School as a transformative moment in her ideas about innovative educational models.
Robert Smith
Robert Smith is the Director of Admissions at Kehillah Jewish High School in Palo Alto. Prior to his work at Kehillah, Robert worked in the educational technology sector developing platforms to support students through the college exploration process. For the past six years, Robert has served as the chair of the board of directors of the East Bay School for Boys in Berkeley. Over nearly two decades, Robert has taught students throughout the US, Latin America, and China as a college instructor and classroom teacher. While a doctoral student at Stanford University, Robert received a Fulbright Fellowship, and he received his Bachelor of Science in Asian and Latin American Studies from Georgetown University.
Liz Stiverson
Liz Stiverson is the Chief of Staff to the Co-CEOs, Head of Internal Communications, and a Principal at TPG, a global alternative investment firm based in San Francisco. In her current role, she works directly with executive leadership on initiatives to enhance firm-wide operations and profitability, including managing the firm’s internal board of directors. She started her career at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Los Angeles, where she specialized in pricing and customer segmentation for consumer companies and education reform for metropolitan school districts. During her time at BCG, she seconded to Green Dot Public Schools, where she led operations and education project teams in the end-to-end operational creation of two transformational charter middle schools. She is a cum laude graduate of Yale, where she studied Economics and holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she delivered her class’s student commencement address. Liz was raised in rural southern Idaho as the lucky daughter of educators; she counts the exponential power of education to transform lives among the principal sources of her success, and the question of how to bring that kind of education to more children around the world among the problems she’s most passionate about solving.