Robin Bentley

Co-Director, Summer Institute Faculty

Robin Bentley has been the Director of Finance and Operations for seven years at The Bush School, a coed K-12 school serving 560 students in Seattle. Prior to The Bush School, she was the Director of Finance at The Brearley School in New York City. Before working in independent schools, Robin worked doing litigation support in the Legal Services Department of a regional CPA firm. She is a CPA by training and a Certified Fraud Examiner. Robin has been active on the PNAIS Planning Committee for the Business Officers' Conferences, and also served on the Business Affairs Council of NYSAIS.

Jeff Fearn

Jeff has been the Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay since January 2006. Early in Jeff's career, he worked with an international CPA firm and was the senior manager in charge of the world-wide Levi Strauss audit. After nearly 10 years working as a CPA, Jeff went to work for a food company and helped increase sales from $40 million to nearly $200 million. His nonprofit experience consisted of auditing several nonprofits and working as the CFO of a private foundation and a community foundation. Jeff has served two terms on the Oakland, CA Citizen Budget Advisory Board and is in his second term as a director of the Alumni Association of the University of California at Davis and as the Chair of its Audit Committee. Jeff has a BA in Political Science from U.C. Davis and an MBA in Finance from U.C. Berkeley, and is a California CPA.

Kathy Peters

Kathy Peters has been the Chief Financial Officer for two independent schools during the past seven years. She is currently the CFO at Phoenix Country Day School, a co-ed PK-12 school of 750 students in Scottsdale, AZ. Kathy began her career as an auditor with one of the largest international public accounting firms, and continued her profession as a controller and CFO for several private companies. She was the Director of a Small Business Development Center in Phoenix, consulting with more than 200 clients in all areas of accounting and finance, while developing and managing the program's four outreach locations and teaching numerous workshops and seminars. In addition, Kathy managed her own consulting practice for more than seven years, providing turn-around assistance, profitability analysis, and complex software conversion expertise to her clients.

Gretchen Reed

Co-Director, Summer Institute Faculty

Gretchen Reed has been the Assistant Head for Finance & Operations during seven years of exciting changes at Westridge School, a girls' school with 510 students in grades 4-12, in Pasadena, CA. Prior to Westridge, she served as Controller and Assistant Treasurer at Occidental College, and was a Vice President in Public Finance at Chemical Bank. She earned her MBA in non-profit management from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Gretchen has also held many volunteer leadership roles at independent schools and at a childcare organization.

Mayer Riff

Mayer is the Assistant Head for Finance & Operations at Marin Country Day School, a co-ed K-8 school in Corte Madera, CA, where he has something to do with feeding 540 students and 130 employees, busing 300 students, and maintaining the school's 35 acre property while also managing the Business Office functions. He previously spent two years as the Director of Finance & Operations at Katherine Delmar Burke School in San Francisco. Quite a bit prior to that, he was a teacher and coach at Helen C. Cannon JHS, a public grade 7-9 school with 1,200 students in Las Vegas, NV. In between his education experiences, Mayer spent 20 years in industry in a variety of finance and accounting roles, working for a CPA firm, a telecom company, and in Silicon Valley. Mayer is currently on the Board of ISBOA, where he is Stats Chair, and Gateway High School, a charter school in San Francisco, where he is Audit Committee Chair. Mayer has an MBA from the Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, and is a CPA.