Who we are

Liam, who hails from Wales, joined Nine Lives as Executive Director in October 2021. Previously, Liam was a regional director for a conglomerate of private veterinary practices along the West Coast and before that was a manager of a multi-disciplinary 24-hour emergency veterinary hospital in San Francisco. He brings extensive management experience as well as broad relationships across the world of private veterinary practice. Liam describes himself as a “crazy cat lover” who has a deep passion for all things that walk on four legs.

Before retiring to devote herself full-time to animal rescue, Jo spent 30 years as a management consultant and financial services executive, specializing in strategy, data & analytics, and customer experience. She grew up in the UK and spent her professional life in the UK, Australia, and Asia before moving to the US in 2000. Jo began volunteering with Nine Lives in 2018 and has been on the Board since 2019. She and her partner are dutiful servants to four beautiful cats, Zoomy, Bucephalus, Wampus (pictured), and Dora.

Jeanne joined Nine Lives Foundation in April 2022. She retired from Humane Society Silicon Valley in 2019 after 15 years, where she held Executive level roles in HR, Volunteer Programs, Humane Education, Operations and Pet Services. Prior to HSSV she worked in executive roles in high tech software companies in Human Resources. Jeanne is a “foster fail” many times over and is pictured with her dog, Joey, an HSSV alum. She lives with her husband and four cats, two of which were adopted from Nine Lives 14 years ago.

Prior to joining the Nine Lives board in 2023, Gerry spent more than 30 years in business. About half that time was in commercial banking focused on serving small to mid sized businesses, including non-profits. The other half was spent as an entrepreneur leading and managing wholesale distribution businesses. Before retiring from business, Gerry and his wife always had a cat at home. After he no longer had a full time job, Rita, a homeless German Shepherd dog, decided that Gerry needed a canine companion. Gerry grew up in Oregon and loves nature and all her creatures. He believes cats are particularly elegant.

Susan heads up the career services office at Stanford Law School, which she transitioned to after practicing law in the Bay Area for a number of years. She grew up on an apple orchard in Eastern Washington surrounded by cats and dogs. When she and her youngest son finally convinced her husband in 2016 that it was time to get a cat, she felt that some order had been restored to the world. It turned out, however, that one cat was not enough. So, Susan started volunteering at Nine Lives in 2019, and joined the board in 2022. Having unlimited access to cute and cuddly cats and kittens and helping them find their forever homes is the next best thing to bringing them all home to live with her. For this, Nebula (“Nebby”), who prefers to be an only child, will be forever grateful to Nine Lives.

Michele McNamara joined Nine Lives’ Board of Directors in 2018 and serves as its Treasurer. She also serves as the Volunteer Coordinator and volunteers at the Adoption Center. In addition to Nine Lives, Michele has volunteered for the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA and the San Francisco SPCA. In 2015 she retired from a career in financial services — which included 15+ years with Visa, world leader in digital payments, where she worked in product management, client consulting, business intelligence and analytics. She now shares her home with Eskimo, who is grateful to be no longer living on the streets of San Francisco.

Mindy started volunteering with Nine Lives Foundation in September 2019 and joined the Board in early 2021. She works in Legal Operations for a media company based in San Francisco. Mindy is a Bay Area native and life-long animal lover. She has two cats — Birdie, adopted from Nine Lives in 2019, and Bumble, adopted from another Bay Area rescue in 2016. Since she started volunteering for Nine Lives, Mindy has fallen in love with more Nine Lives kitties she can count. Remarkably, she has resisted bringing them all home to live with her.

Janaina joined the Nine Lives Foundation Board in March 2021. Before joining Nine Lives as a volunteer in 2019 with a focus on moving paper-based processes online, she volunteered with cat rescues for many years — in her birth country, Brazil, and at Humane Society Silicon Valley, where she worked with kittens for four years. Janaina works on Developer Experience at NVIDIA, and has held multiple lead roles in technology companies prior to that. Janaina loves to foster and lives with her husband, six hens, and her Nine Lives cat Katamari who doesn’t quite like the paparazzi, as can be seen in the picture.

Bert started volunteering with Nine Lives in March 2023 and joined the Board in December 2023. During spring 2022 Bert and his husband were ready to adopt after the loss of Princess Coo Coo, their beloved cat and cherished member of their family for 17 years. They adopted from separate shelters two playful sweet young adult male cats Freddy and Worm. They bonded and inspired Bert to look for a place to volunteer where he could help other at-risk cats find care, treatment and permanent loving homes. Nine Lives Foundation’s mission, culture, staff and volunteer dedication, and impact on the community was a perfect match. Prior to moving to the Bay Area from New York City he has been an entrepreneur, consultant, software engineer and business man in the live entertainment industry for nearly forty years.

Candace joined the Board in October 2024, is a devoted cat mom to two adorable kitties, and a dedicated advocate for animal welfare. Candace’s passion for cat & kitten rescue foundations was ignited eleven years ago when Candace adopted her two fur babies, Amethyst and Winston, from a similar rescue foundation to Nine Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Candace is originally from. With over 15 years of experience in HR, Candace has had the pleasure of supporting a number of teams across a variety of industries to foster positive and effective work environments. Currently at NVIDIA and previously at Meta and Electronic Arts, Candace partners as an Executive Coach and HR Business Partner to support Leaders and their global teams in doing their life’s work.