Sarah is an entrepreneur, architect, and impact strategist passionate about fostering public trust through intelligent design and technology. Originally from Pakistan, she came to the U.S. as a Fulbright scholar, earning her degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her award-winning research on sustainable social structures led to LettuceBee Kids, Pakistan’s first eco-friendly social enterprise supporting refugee children and their mothers.
After running her venture for 10 years, Sarah refined her business acumen at Stanford, scaling impactful innovations. She has since driven transformative projects at Kiva, Twilio, and Amazon. Recognized as an Acumen Fellow, iCats Fellow, TEDx speaker, 40 Under 40 honoree, and Presidential Leadership Scholar, Sarah excels in uniting governments, tech, and communities for a collective good.
Outside of work, Sarah loves to hike with her dog, Prof. Dumbledore, and fosters human-connection over food and dialogue through her new venture, Mayz.
Richard Ajluni joined JW House on January 2nd, 2020 as Executive Director. Richard has served in leadership roles with local and international nonprofit organizations, including Catholic Charities, Gardner Family Health, and World Vision.
A long time community volunteer Richard has served on the San Jose Arts Commission, the boards of MACLA, and Loaves & Fishes.
He has lived in San Jose’s Historic Naglee Park neighborhood for 22 years. Richard’s spouse Karen works at Stanford University and they have 3 children at different phases of education.
Richard loves to cook for friends and is always up for a bike ride or a good book on politics or religion, hobbies also include piano and golf however, both at a second grade level.
Richard is a graduate of Bellarmine College Prep., and San Jose State University.
Steve Borkenhagen has been an entrepreneur and business owner in Silicon Valley since 1975. He opened Camera One Theater, the first repertory cinema in San Jose, along with partners in 1975. During the years since, Steve has founded and operated multiple bars and restaurants in the South Bay Area including Eulipia Restaurant from 1977 to 2012.
He studied Classics at San Jose State University after attending Santa Clara University and New College of California in San Francisco. Steve worked in the energy management field for two years as an energy auditor and is a certified LEED AP (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional). He was also the project manager and part of the founding team of the San Pedro Square Market, a public market built in the tradition of Pike Place Market and other public markets. He worked with his family to found and operate Cafe Stritch, the Bay Area’s pre-eminent jazz club from 2013 until 2018.
In 2017 Thomas Wohlmut, Jon Ball, and Steve started the San Jose Light Tower Corporation, a non-profit organization working to build an iconic world-class landmark in downtown San Jose. Steve has been on numerous non-profit boards over the past 30 years including Notre Dame High School, the San Jose Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Santa Clara University Department of Pastoral Ministries, the San Jose Downtown Association, Loaves and Fishes Family Kitchen, JW House, and Music for Minors. He has been an active member of the Rotary Club of San Jose for over 25 years, participating in numerous philanthropic domestic and international programs.
Lina Broydo is an award-winning writer, columnist, and blogger and an expert public relations professional.
She was born in Ufa in the Ural Mountains region of the Soviet Union and grew up in Vilnius, then the capital of the Lithuanian Republic of the Soviet Union. An only child, Lina immigrated at the age of 15 with her parents to Poland and moved to Israel following a year living in Warsaw.
After graduating from college with a degree in chemistry, she married Sasha Broydo and moved to Birmingham, England, where they both studied and worked at the world-renowned Birmingham University.
Invited by the prestigious Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, Dr. Sasha Broydo, Lina, and son Mark (who was born in Birmingham), moved to Westfield, New Jersey. Daughter Leora was born in New Jersey. After 14 years living in New Jersey, they found their way to Los Altos Hills in Silicon Valley, California.
Lina speaks English, Russian, Polish, and Hebrew and lives in Los Altos Hills, California.
Lina's professional career included successful work doing the following:
• Producer and on-air personality at Cross Country Cable TV in New Jersey
• Co-owner and metal sculpture artist at the ArtMakers Gallery in New Jersey
• Associate producer at KRON TV, the NBC TV affiliate in San Francisco
• President of "Executive Sports" management company in Los Altos Hills
• Director of Public Relations and Promotions at the 5-star luxury Fairmont Hotel in San Jose
• Associate producer of "Fresh Dialogues", an award-winning on-line TV show
• Public Relations Executive for the Taube International Foundation in the San Francisco Bay Area
Affiliations:
• Los Altos Rotary Club
• ORT International Professional School
• Bay Area Travel Writers
• Commonwealth Club of San Francisco
• Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
Jaime G. Chavez has been in the Dream Fulfillment business for 30yrs. Currently working as Director of Client Development at SVB Private Bank. His specialty is collaborating with growing privately held companies and high net worth individuals to plan and achieve their dreams. Works and lives in San Jose, primarily managing client relationships locally but does extend coast to coast and places in between. In his new role at SVB Private he is responsible for growing SVB market share along with increasing brand awareness for SVB Private while demonstrating the capabilities of the new combined organization after acquiring Boston Private Bank. Prior to joining Silicon Valley Bank through Boston Private acquisition, he held leadership positions with City National Bank, GE Capital, and Bank of America.
When Jaime is not doing his day job, he’s committed to volunteer work in San Jose community and abroad. He continues his volunteer work with Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley, Parisi House on the Hill and, Rotary Club of San Jose where he’s served on various committees, Foundation Board and Club Board. Rotary is where he was introduced to Rotaplast International, where he has traveled to South America on various medical missions (life changing for him) to provide surgical treatments we take for granted in USA but are so desperately needed across the globe.
If it sounds like Jaime works and volunteers a lot, this is true. He does make time for things he truly enjoys. Such as, spending time with friends and family. He’s a trained chef and sommelier and enjoys everything about both. Go ahead and test your culinary and wine knowledge on him. Chances are, if he has a glass of wine in one hand and foie gras in the other he may not shut up about it.
Former San Jose Vice Mayor Charles “Chappie” Jones was elected to the San José City Council in November of 2014 with close to 60% of the popular vote. He represented City Council District 1, the region of West San José that borders the cities of Campbell, Cupertino, Santa Clara and Saratoga. Chappie was born in Sacramento and moved to San José in the 1990’s. His upbringing instilled a strong sense of civic responsibility and made him into a strong advocate of civil service, fiscal responsibility, and community engagement.
Prior to his election, Chappie worked in the private sector where he held sales and marketing management positions with Apple and AT&T, was an Executive Manager with Cornerstone Consulting and Technology, and owned a technology service business.
Chappie assumed the role of Chair of the Santa Clara County Valley Transportation Authority
Chappie has a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of California, Davis and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Chappie has been married for over 25 years to Kelli Jones, a high-tech sales and marketing manager. Together they have two children and live in the Murdock neighborhood of District 1.
Winner of 3 film and video awards for acting and voice talent. President of Big Kahuna Video Productions he brings his experience as writer, director and voice-talent for corporate videos in Silicon Valley for companies such as Samsung Foundry, KLA-Tencor, Cadence Design Systems, Arm, Disney, Apple, TSMC, and many more.
In addition to Sean’s behind the camera experience, he has also worked as a standup comic, actor and voice-actor and performed with notable A-listers that include Jay Leno, Dennis Miller, Dana Carvey and Howie Mandel. His credits include numerous made for TV movies for NBC and CBS along with a series of feature films with Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, Alan Alda, Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg. Sean was directly involved as a writer and voice talent for radio and television commercials along with the video game industry for Sony, Nintendo, Atari, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and DC Comics video game and virtual reality divisions.
Sean comes with an extensive background in the world of high tech specifically (IoT) Internet of Things, Virtual & Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Computing.
Former board-member and Secretary of History San Jose Past President, San Jose -Dublin Ireland Sister City Program Current Board-member San Jose Police Foundation. Studied at San Jose State University and UC Berkeley, Radio-TV Broadcasting and Business Communications.
His wife Ann is a retired 6th grade language arts teacher at Buchser Middle School and son Colin is a graduate of Sonoma State University.
What is important in Sean’s life are his family, friends and creating new possibilities everyday for himself and others in his life.
“When I’m not working you can find me at the beach, hunting down Miles Davis mono vinyl or out getting gigs for my video production company and as a voice-actor.”
