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board of directors

of San Francisco Shakespeare Festival

Cynthia Francis headshotCYNTHIA FRANCIS
CHAIR
Cynthia is the US Managing Director of OpenCities, Inc. with offices in San Francisco and Melbourne, AU. She is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience building and leading pioneering companies in digital and social media. Prior to working in technology, Cynthia earned a BA in Theater and Dance from UC Berkeley, and worked in non-profit theater and arts organizations including four years at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. She has been a two-decade long supporter of SF Shakes as an audience member, patron and enthusiastic Shakespeare Camp mom. Seeing the value of Shakespeare camp for her three daughters was a catalyst to join the Board and look to further leverage her shared passions of theater, kids, activism and technology.

Roshni Jain headshotRoshni Jain
CO-VICE-CHAIR
Roshni is a theater nerd at heart and loves engaging her right brain to support the festival in bringing Shakespeare to students and local communities across the Bay Area. She is passionate about the mission to bring Shakespeare to all as she believes in its power to transform lives. Roshni worked in management consulting for many years and now leads product at Eventbrite. She holds a B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University.

Aaron Kabaker headshotAARON KABAKER
CO-VICE-CHAIR
Aaron came to Shakespeare in college, where he realized how much he enjoyed the Bard when his plays were taught as performance. He performed with the Stanford Shakespeare theater troupe, appearing in Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and As You Like It, and after graduating regularly patronized shows at the Folger Theatre and the Shakespeare Theater Company (STC) in Washington, DC. He is thrilled to be a board member at SF Shakes, which has a goal of bringing Shakespeare to children across the Bay Area through a special blend of performance and study. Aaron works in Strategy for Google and has a BA in Public Policy from Stanford and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He lives in San Francisco with his family.

Raymond Kutz headshotROYMOND KUTZ
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Ray has worked in various capacities of marketing, product and services management for the 20 years at Oracle and Sun Microsystems. He has a BS in Biology and Secondary Education from the University of Missouri and an MBA from San Jose State. Ray has made San Francisco home for 30 plus years after growing up on a farm in Missouri where access to theater and performing arts was extremely limited. That limited access to the arts influences his passion today for making the arts accessible to everyone. This passion was awakened after studying and performing in improvisational theater and volunteering as a photography docent at the Ansel Adams Gallery in the late 90’s. More recently, Ray has been singing with the San Francisco City College chorus. His involvement with the Festival began by attending performances and “paying to get out” after each performance. After learning more about the mission and observing the impact of the Festival on multiple communities, Ray joined the board in 2006 and began work as the Board Advancement Chair. He looks forward to seeing the Festival celebrate the next generation of thespians and arts supporters in the Bay Area through its outreach into the Bay Area and communities beyond.

Michael Li-Ming Wong HeadshotMICHAEL LI-MING WONG
SECRETARY
Michael has drawn wisdom and inspiration from Shakespeare’s works for more than two decades, and he believes strongly that Shakespeare can and should be enjoyed by everybody, irrespective of education or background. Michael served as Shakespeare coach to his former boss, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in preparation for her cameo appearance in Henry V at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC; he also wrote his own wedding vows in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet. By day, Michael is a partner in the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and the proud father of two boys who already delight in the sword fights, mistaken identities, hilarious cross-dressing and voyeurism permeating Shakespeare’s body of work.

James A Babcock headshotJAMES A. BABCOCK
MEMBER
Jim has been on the board of SFSF for over twenty years. He first became involved after one of his daughters played a part in the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is a retired architect from the firm of Sandy/Babcock International. He graduated from the University of Illinois with a BA and Master’s of Architecture. He is on the board of the Presidio Historical Association and is a founding director of Trans Pacific National Bank.

Raymond M Buddie headshotRAYMOND M. BUDDIE
MEMBER
Raymond’s passion for SF Shakes stems from his love of Shakespeare which started in High School, reading and studying Julius Caesar. More recently, his appreciation for the efforts that go into the production and presentation of live performances has been enhanced by learning from his daughter, a Theater and Drama student, who has shown him the way theater and arts can be used to both entertain and teach in a way that other mediums cannot. It’s important to Raymond that SF Shakes continues to provide family and youth arts activities in the Bay Area. Raymond has over 35 years of experience as a Construction and Real Estate Attorney practicing in San Francisco and has been recognized repeatedly as one of the top attorneys in Northern California by Chambers and by SuperLawyers. He is currently a Partner with Clark Hill, LLP.

Jesse Dim headshotJESSE DIM
MEMBER
Jesse is a Sr. Operations Associate at DoorDash, and has made her career working at high growth tech startups. Jesse has loved theatre her entire life. In college, she was a member of the Rude Mechanicals the only fully student-run Shakespearean theatre troupe at Dartmouth College. She is thrilled to be a part of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, and help bring Shakespeare to the city. Jesse is from Tempe, Arizona.

Meghan Freebeck headshotMEGHAN FREEBECK
MEMBER

Meghan’s love for Shakespeare began in elementary school when she would sneak into the movies to see the PG-13 rated Romeo & Juliet. She followed that adoration through college to study English Literature with a term on Theatre Studies in London, and later receiving a Masters Degree with a focus on Renaissance Lit. Meghan was the Director of Communications for the Shakespeare Project of Chicago in 2012, and in 2018 she would celebrate her wedding at the Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park. Professionally, Meghan is the CEO of Simply the Basics, a nonprofit that serves the low-income and homeless community with ensuring basic needs are accessible to everyone. In 2019, Meghan worked with SF Shakes to develop “Shakespeare for All Neighbors”, an event to bring Shakespeare to the Recipients of her organization. Meghan is honored to join the Board of Directors, and believes that through Shakespeare’s plays, we can have a deeper understanding of ourselves and of humanity.

Alexandra Lex Hamilton headshotALEXANDRA “LEX” HAMILTON
MEMBER
As a Bay Area native, Lex has attended and participated in many of SF Shakes’ programs over the last two decades, including four years as a camper and one year as an intern in the Bay Area Shakespeare Camps. As a direct result of those years at Shakespeare Camp, Lex and a few other campers/classmates started a drama club at their middle school, which is still going strong after almost twenty years. From those early experiences, Lex’s love of Shakespeare and SF Shakes has only grown. She is particularly passionate about continuing to make Shakespeare accessible to people regardless of background. Lex is a trial lawyer by trade, handling catastrophic personal injury cases at Fiore Achermann in San Francisco.

Gorkem Kem Ozbek headshotGORKEM “KEM” OZBEK
MEMBER
Having been introduced to the Bard through the endless footnotes of Arden Shakespeare, Kem has nonetheless been lucky enough to know and work with teachers and artists who have shown him that Shakespeare demands to be seen and heard, not read. He has enjoyed opportunities in acting, directing, and theater research that have taught him the transformative power of Shakespeare’s verse in a way no English literature class could. Kem believes that having free access to Shakespeare in performance can illuminate its true understanding for youth across the Bay’s under served communities, and empower them with emotional and intellectual range required to develop empathy, so desperately needed in a society where interactions are increasingly impersonal and biased. Hailing from Istanbul, Turkey and a resident of the Bay Area since 2002, Kem is a Director of Business Development at Dropbox by trade. He lives in Merced Manor with his wife and young daughter.

Jonathan Palley HeadshotJONATHAN PALLEY
MEMBER
Bio coming soon!