Board of Trustees

 
 

Ian Mensher

Chair

Ian joined the Board of Trustees in 2023. A life-long Seattleite, Ian’s two children delighted in the rich educational environment Perkins teachers and staff work tirelessly to create. Ian is an attorney and a career law clerk to a federal judge. When not trying to unwind complex problems, Ian delights in riding and racing bicycles, baking bread, and trying to keep up with his kids. 

 
 

Justin Brooks

Treasurer

Justin joined the Board of Trustees in 2023.  He is a Perkins parent - the father of two girls, both of whom are at Perkins.  Justin works at a small investment bank facilitating Mergers & Acquisitions for wineries and vineyards in the Northwest, and also owns and operates a hospitality business in Walla Walla and a financial consulting firm focused on wineries.  In his free time, Justin enjoys being outdoors with his wife and girls, reading, tending his tiny garden, and rooting for all the Seattle sports teams.

 
 

Sarah Clifton

Secretary

Sarah joined the Perkins Board of Trustees in August 2022.  She is a managing real estate broker with Windermere Real Estate and has wide-ranging experience in a variety of real estate disciplines, including real estate sales, portfolio management and maximization, development analysis and property management.  However, Sarah’s most treasured profession is mother to her two children (a current Perkins student and a graduate).  Sarah enjoys travelling, spending time with her husband and family, and learning about new things – she always has a mini research project in the works!

 
 

Soo Kim

Soo joined the Board of Trustees in 2026.  She is a parent to two current Perkins students (2nd & 4th), and truly loves the Perkins community.  She and her husband moved to Seattle from Austin, Texas in 2014, but now consider the PNW home.  She attended college at the University of Chicago, then completed her residency in ophthalmology at UT Southwestern in Dallas.  Soo has been named a "Top Doctor" by both Seattle Magazine and Seattle Met Magazine for five years running.  She practices full time as a fellowship trained ophthalmologist, specializing in cataract and cornea surgeries. In her free time, Soo loves running Magnuson 5k's and local half marathons, exploring the PNW, traveling with her family, and cheering on her kids from the sidelines at soccer and baseball games. 

 
 

Chrissy Sinclair

Chrissy is an administrator at another local independent school. She earned her BA in Government from Colby College and her Masters in Elementary Education from Lesley University. She recently completed the Pathways to Leadership program for aspiring female school leaders. Chrissy spends as much time as possible outdoors with her husband and twin daughters, Soundview alumna, backpacking, biking, and playing Ultimate Frisbee.

 
 

Victoria Ruter

Victoria joined the Board of Trustees in 2026. She brings 20+ years of experience in consumer brands, with deep expertise in e-commerce shaped by a decade at Amazon. She currently serves as Chief Growth Officer at Arcadia Digital, where she leads brand, company strategy, and client success. Prior to joining the Board, Victoria served on the board of New Discovery School, the play-based preschool both of her children attended.

Victoria lives in Maple Leaf with her husband and their two children, both Perkins students, and she loves the daily walk to school with her kids. An avid gardener, she can often be found outside getting her hands dirty and finding room for just one more plant. When she’s not in the garden, she enjoys dreaming up her next interior design project, cooking her way through New York Times recipes, and keeping up with her kids’ ever-growing list of activities.

 
 

Jen Wichterman

Is the Executive Director of Enterprise Financial Planning at the Boeing Company. She oversees the deployment of the Company’s Long Range Business Plan and ongoing forecast process. She has been at Boeing for 14 years, where she has held a variety of leadership roles. Prior to Boeing, she spent several years performing financial statement audits at PwC. She relocated from Chicago to Seattle in 2014. 

Originally from Ohio, Jen graduated from Ohio University with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance. She is currently an advisory board member for a student organization developing high-potential College of Business students at Ohio University. She holds a CPA license in the state of Illinois. She has two children at Perkins (K & 3rd). In her spare time, Jen enjoys being out on the water, traveling and hiking in the beautiful scenery of the Pacific Northwest.

 
 

Christina Fogg

Christina joined the Perkins Board of Trustees in 2025. She is a policy advisor to King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski (District 1), focusing on the areas of youth services, homelessness, and the criminal legal system. Prior to her current role, Christina worked as a lawyer for more than 15 years in both private practice and public service, most recently as the Civil Rights Program Coordinator for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington. Christina also serves on the boards of the Center for Children and Youth Justice and the Joint Minority Bar Association Mentorship Program. Christina is a proud mom to two Perkins students and is hoping to become a dog mom during her board tenure.

 
 

Sonja Everson

Sonja joined the Board of Trustees in 2022. She is currently the Director of Admission and Enrollment Management at a local independent school. When beginning her professional life, she quickly realized a talent and passion for teaching at the elementary school level, which she proceeded to do for 15 years before moving into school administration. Her favorite activities include hiking through dense forests, coaxing green tomatoes to turn red, and along with her husband, maintaining an unending optimism for a Mariners' World Series championship.

 
 

Lisa Tripathi

Lisa joined the Perkins Board of Trustees in 2025. She is the proud mother of two Perkins students and loves being a part of the Perkins community, having most recently served as a co-chair of the Perkins Parent Association. Lisa is a human resources executive who has spent her 20-plus year career in people leadership roles at various companies; she currently consults for small companies in need of HR expertise. In her free time, Lisa also enjoys reading, traveling with her family and cheering from the sidelines at youth sporting events.

 
 

Christine Lu

Christine joined the Perkins Board of Trustees in 2024. She is a mother of two, one at Perkins and another joining next fall. Originally from Taiwan, she’s been a Seattlite for more than a decade and obtained her MBA at the University of Washington Foster School of Business. She has 14 years of combined finance experience across corporate finance and the investment banking industry. Currently she is a finance leader at Expedia where she focuses on financial planning, budgeting, investment reviews and commercial deal analyses for various business segments. In her spare time, she enjoys dancing and being silly with her two kids, quality personal time reading in a cafe, going to the movies and date nights out with her husband and is always planning where to travel next! 

 
 

The Board of an independent school has the ultimate responsibility for the institution.

School heads and trustees come and go: only the Board is permanent. The Board is responsible for the integrity of the school, the standing and reputation built by its founders and those who have labored over the years. The Board holds in trust the school’s future as well as its present; the Board’s collective judgment will affect how the institution can serve constituencies to come.

The Board has four principal responsibilities:

  • To organize and manage itself so as to fulfill its duties to the school

  • To plan, develop, and establish policy and to assess the school’s performance

  • To oversee the school’s financial condition and physical plant

  • To select the head of school and work cooperatively with that person

A guiding document of the Board is the Strategic Plan, which sets the long term direction for this work. In 2018, Perkins updated it’s Strategic Plan. You can see the full text of it by clicking: The Perkins School Strategic Plan

To contact the Board of Trustees with questions about governance or the Strategic Plan, email BOT@theperkinsschool.org