Our Board of Directors
San Francisco Bay Area Board
Julie Apsit Alonso
Julie has spent nearly two decades utilizing her unique blend of creativity, passion, love of leading and courage to step outside the lines-- to build memorable, meaningful and measurable brand platforms.
Bridging the crossroads of community, cause, culture, style and music, Julie imagined and built nationally recognized programs, critically acclaimed andpromoted by the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Larry King—but equally as important and powerful—were the initiatives built to connect on a one to one level in local communities with a wide array of consumer groups. Her ideas and initiatives have been awarded and hailed as being engaging, meaningful, connective and creative--- all while driving bottom line results. A combination of authenticity, strategy, emotion and cutting edge creative, consistently leads her to tangible results with impact and staying power.
Julie joined Gap Inc. in 1992 and spent the first ten years of her retail career working directly for one of the most renowned retailers in America, CEO Mickey Drexler. In 1996 she became Drexler’s Director of Public Relations and Administration and helped create the The Words To Live By for Gap Inc., defining a culture of integrity, creativity, smart risk taking and an appreciation for diversity. She made it a mission to learn everything she could from Drexler about retail, marketing, and public relations. He promoted her to director and encouraged her to stay creative and trust her gut.
In 2002, Julie was appointed Director of Public Relations for Gap brand. In 2005, she was promoted to Senior Director and created and built theEngagement Marketing department for Gap. Julie was responsible the national brands first foray into non-traditional, and word of mouth marketing—ten years ago. In 2006 Julie was featured on the cover of Event Marketer Magazine with an article crediting her for “winning consumers hearts with an experiential marketing strategy based on simplicity.” Taking a stand for the power of authentic individual connection, she spent the next five years continuing to lead the department as well as championing and driving all Partnership and Cause Related initiatives. Whether it was an effort to provide coats for underserved children, eradicating AIDS in Africa or inspiring America to Vote; year after year Julie built programs leveraging the power of the brand for the collective good—underscoring the notion, “EVERYONE does better, when EVERYONE does better.” In 2009, upon Gap’s 40th anniversary, the company employed more than 130,000 people, operated approximately 3200 stores worldwide- and Julie was recognized as one of the forty past and present Gap Inc. employees who most significantly helped shape the company into the global icon that it had become. Julie was honored with the “40 in 40” award which was given by Gap founders Don and Doris Fisher.
Prior to joining Gap Inc., Julie was Executive Assistant and lead special projects and events forMichael Ovitz, who was at the time, Founder and President of Creative Artists Agency. She received BA in Communications from theUniversity of Southern California. Julie’s passions are children, music, and creative expression with a positive purpose; she is a member of the Bay Area Board of Little Kids Rock, which combines all three passions by bringing rock and roll music curriculum to middle schools in America. Julie lives in Marin County, California with her three sons, Garrett, Jesse and Luke.
Kristy Cook
Kristy originally from Toronto, currently works with Yahoo in the SF Bay area. In this role at Yahoo, she and her team manage the end-to-end partner relationships for some of Yahoo's leading North American Partnerships. At present they include social media partner portfolio (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Zynga; our channel partnerships (i.e. Match.com; Monster.com, Price Grabber; and local partnerships (Starbucks, GroupOn, etc). Previously her portfolio included partnerships such as Comcast, Verizon, Rogers, Turner Sports and eBay. Her expertise lies in bringing products & services to market - first half of her career was marketing communications - the second half has been product and partner focused.
Chris Donohoe
Born in Sunnyvale, California, singer/songwriter Chris Donohoe grew up listening to his parents' vinyl records and the eclectic mix of artists like Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Diamond, Burt Bacharach, Judy Collins, Benny Goodman, and The Fifth Dimension to name a few. Inspired by the sounds, Chris always had music in his head but it wasn't until college that he picked up guitar and was hooked. Though his music pursuits took a backseat as Chris pursued a career as a TV Weather anchor; his guitar was always in tow. And perhaps it was coincidence that landed him television jobs in such storied music towns as Muscle Shoals, Alabama and Bakersfield, California. Regardless, Chris' passion for music and songwriting was more powerful than the storms he reported and in 2001 he left television behind and began making trips to the ultimate music city, Nashville, Tennessee.
Jon Luini
Jon is the founder of Chime Interactive, a full service digital agency that provides digital strategy services, web site technologies and design, and video and multimedia production. Specializing in the music industry, Chime has a client list that ranges from Bob Dylan, Madonna and U2 to the Beastie Boys, Los Lobos and Joe Satriani, as well as Korg, world leader of musical instruments. Jon has been in the trenches exploring and helping define the Internet music space since its inception. In the 1990s he founded three companies that early on demonstrated the potential of music online: the first online music destination site (IUMA, 1993), the first online rock-n-roll magazine (Addicted To Noise, 1994), and the first webcasting company (MediaCast, 1995). Jon was named one of the "Top 50 People to Watch in Cyberspace" by Newsweek in 1995, has spoken at numerous Internet and music conferences, and most recently received a gold record for his digital strategy and video directing contributions with the band Chickenfoot (Chad Smith, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar), whose debut album went gold in 2010. Jon also performs & records music whenever he is able (including with a rock band for kids).
Chris Skarakis
N/A
Joni Soekotjo
Joni is Senior Partner at Provident Financial Management-San Francisco managing a boutique staff of 20, with headquarters in Los Angeles. Joni packed her bags and drove to San Francisco in 1978 after one horrible winter in Cleveland Ohio. She loved rock music and as fate would have it, she landed a position at a San Francisco business management firm that specialized in entertainment accounting and tax and has made this a career she is very passionate about.
Over the past 30 years, Joni has had the unique opportunity to work with many Bay Area music icons and other artists from around the world. She loves helping musicians protect their hard earned income and many of her clients she can call friend. Joni has travelled the world with her husband and twin sons, Kris and Kyle and plays golf when she can. Joni has been supporting Little Kids Rock since 2004...believing strongly in their mission that music can make a difference in a young life.
Jeremy Wagner
Jeremy currently serves as the President of The Renaissance Fund, a private foundation, as a volleyball coach for middle school and high school girls, and as the manager of Stargazer Ranch, a tree farm and vacation property in the Sierra Foothills. Jeremy is a rocker from way back. At 7 years old, he was forbidden to listen to the Beatles in the house; at 12, he was the front man and lead singer for a garage band that covered the popular songs of the day; at 40, he learned 4 chords on the acoustic guitar; and at 45, he taught his 3 year-old daughter all the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody. Jeremy, his amazing wife, Brenda, and their two beautiful, musical daughters, Emily (10) and Anika (5) live in Oakland, where their home is filled with singing, guitar, and keyboards.
Jay Webster
Jay is Chief Product Officer at Quova / Neustar, a company that is the leader in IP address-based location technology. It is used by Major League Baseball, Yahoo!, Microsoft Bing, Google, and Facebook to name but a few clients. Jay heads up product, engineering, and R&D for NeuStar's growing suite of location-based solutions. Jay has been involved with Little Kids Rock since 2004 and sits on other advisory boards including: Marin Software and NeoEdge Networks. He has also been rocking out on his various guitars for the past 35 years.
