Board of Trustees
The role of a board in a not-for-profit school is to safeguard and promote the school's mission by ensuring fiscal stability, and working closely with the Head of School to implement a strategic vision. The Helios Board is made up of current and past parents, along with outside experts, all of whom meet regularly during the year on committees, task forces, and as a full board. Helios School is a member of NAIS and CAIS. Both organizations provide a network of other boards and professional development that binds the school into the local and national independent school community.
2025 - 2026 Trustees
Marco Mena (Board Chair)
Marco has spent his career in and around biotechnology startups in Boston and the Bay Area, most recently as co-founder of Augmenta Bioworks in Menlo Park. He is a proud parent of twins at Helios. In the last few years, he's volunteered with the Helios Community Association (HCA), the MIT Educational Council, and the Common Ground Speaker Series. He earned his B.S. and M.S. from MIT and a Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara in Chemical Engineering.
Matt Allio
Matt is the Senior Advisor for the Guanghua Education Group. The Guangua Education Group is based in Shanghai and enrolls 24,000 students in 12 schools across China. Matt’s role with Guanghua is to bring Western educational practices to the schools in China and to provide leadership mentoring and training. Prior to Helios, Matt was the Head of School at Trinity School in Menlo Park. Trinity is a K-5 co-ed school that shares many of Helios’ values—the mission talks of “an environment where each child is known, valued and has their unique voice.” Matt’s career also included appointments as Head of School at Walden School in Pasadena and Live Oak School in San Francisco. Matt received his BA from the University of San Francisco and received his MA in Elementary Education from California State University Northridge and as a Klingenstein Fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Jolee Crosson
Jolee has over 20 years of experience in technology sales. In 2021, she traded the tech world for her passion for non-profit work and volunteering. Active in her local community, she is on the board of her younger son’s school and is a member of the Los Altos Women's Caucus, dedicated to empowering women in leadership. Prior to joining the Helios board, Jolee contributed to Helios School's admissions and community relations in the 2021-22 school year and co-chaired the Helios Community Association for two years. She had a six-year tenure on the Mountain View Community Services Agency Board and is also dedicated to supporting her son with Type 1 Diabetes through fundraising for Breakthrough T1D. She is a mother of two sons, one a Helios graduate.
Hagar Dickman
Hagar has ten years of experience with Bay Area nonprofits. She currently serves as Director of California Long-Term Services and Supports Advocacy at Justice in Aging, where she works on ensuring all Californian older adults can access the supports they need to age in place. Prior to joining Justice in Aging, Hagar was a mental health, disability and veterans attorney representing individuals with mental health and other disabilities in housing, benefits, health access and consumer issues. She is the mother of two Helios graduates, one current Helios student, and a college graduate. Hagar received her B.A. in Anthropology from Brandeis University, and her J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
Kristal Ferchau
Kristal Ferchau is the Managing Partner of Spectrum Business Partners, a consulting firm that specializes in business management and executive advisory services. With over 25 years of experience in strategic planning, organizational development, and diversity initiatives in the technology sector, Kristal has advised both emerging startups and global brands on performance optimization and sustainable growth. Beyond her professional endeavors, she has served as co-chair of the Helios Community Association and participated in the American Marketing Association’s mentorship program for first-generation college students. Additionally, she is an advocate for Girls Inc., cultivating leadership skills in young girls. Kristal has been a member of the Helios community since 2018 when her son joined the school as a kindergartener.
Ian Gulliver
Ian leads engineering organizations focused on production services reliability at Apple, formerly Google and startups. Ian and Michelle’s son Oliver joined Helios in kindergarten, and the camping program provided the onramp for Ian’s volunteering at Helios, progressing to co-chair and then treasurer of the Helios Community Association (HCA). You can find him involved in sound, lighting, or snow cones at many Helios events. Ian has previously served on the board of a Bay Area educational non-profit, focusing on finance, marketing, and operations.
Tanya Lattner
Tanya Lattner is the Executive Director and board President of the LLVM Foundation, a nonprofit supporting the open source software project LLVM. For the last 11 years, Tanya has helped the LLVM project through educational events such as large developers conferences and workshops, student support through travel grants, community outreach, and increasing diversity within the project and open source software through the Community.o program. Tanya has a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Portland and a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has over 10 years experience and 5 patents as a software engineer primarily focusing on compilers and related tools. Tanya is a Helios parent with 2 boys in 6th and 8th grade. She is an active volunteer as room parent, helping and chaperoning camping trips, and co-coaching a First Lego League robotics team. Prior to being at Helios, Tanya volunteered at their local public school as room parent, cub scout den leader, co-organizer of a book fair, and sourced, organized, and managed the after school programs. When not working or volunteering, she likes to travel, cook, and make fancy decorated cookies.
Lisa Raghav
Lisa is the mother of two previous Helios students who each attended Helios for three years. During that time Lisa also served as a Chair of the HCA and was an active, ongoing volunteer in the school library. Lisa is passionate about children and education and has chosen volunteer roles where she can make an impact in these areas such as serving as a teacher reading assistant in the Seattle Public Schools as well as two years in the board director position of Treasurer for a bay area parents club. Lisa's professional career has been in finance primarily focused on business strategy services related to global mergers and acquisitions in the tech industry. Lisa holds a BA in English and an MBA with focus in Finance.
Shawn Sears
Shawn loves Helios School and its mission! He and his wife Laura co-founded an educational organization in 2001, Vida Verde, also for a special population. He still works there today as Executive Director, serves on their board, and works directly with many schools across the Bay. Shawn brings these experiences in nonprofit management/governance and communication clarity, as well as his delight for children and their potential to his service on the board.
Thaddeus Stephens
Thad is currently serving his second term on the Helios School Board of Trustees, having previously served during the school's founding days. Thad’s wife, Lilliemae, is one of the school’s co-founders, and their two Helios graduates, Atticus (2017) and Emerson-Jane (2020), maintain a close connection to Helios. Thad began his career as a corporate attorney, specializing in M&A, IPOs, and tech startups. He left law firm life to co-found Equilar, Inc., an executive compensation data company. Later, he joined The Myers-Briggs Company’s executive team as General Counsel. By the end of his thirteen year tenure, Thad not only led the legal department but also oversaw the company's strategy, product, research, and content development teams. Thad holds a BA in English from Oberlin College and a JD, with distinction, from Stanford Law School.
Jing Tian
Jing currently serves as Chief Growth and Revenue Officer at Tigo Energy, where she leads global business development efforts and strategic revenue generation initiatives. A veteran in the solar industry, she has been involved with many solar companies and has advised many startups. She focuses on accelerating business growth in the clean-tech and solar industries. Jing earned her Ph.D. degree in chemistry from Drexel University and is an active volunteer in her community. She was a mentor at AWIS for 6 years and is a Pancreatic Cancer Action Network and climate change advocate. She is the proud parent of one of Helios graduates.
Rob Zehner
Rob and his wife Kristine have been members of the Helios community since their oldest child joined the school in 2014. Rob and his family have been active members of the Helios community for a decade, and both children are now proud Helios alumni! In addition to serving on the Board, Rob has enjoyed chaperoning on many Helios camping trips, volunteering in the iLab, judging speech and debate tournaments, and completing a variety of construction and beautification projects in and around the school. In his professional life, Rob is currently the Vice President of Engineering at Coco Robotics, a start-up developing autonomous robots for last-mile delivery. Rob earned his doctoral degree in physical chemistry from The University of Chicago after completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Richmond.