Staff & Advisory Board
Lauren Wagman
Executive Director
For more than 15 years, Lauren has led mission-driven organizations to achieve greater impact on urgent social issues. She is especially committed to the field of early childhood development, and two-generation strategies that focus on children and their parents. Lauren is thrilled to join Ready, Set, Read! to steward its growth and ensure Los Angeles families have access to books, resources and support to lay the foundation for their children’s lifelong learning.
Lauren has a BA from Vanderbilt University, where she was an Ingram Scholar, and an MBA from the USC Marshall School of Business, where she was a Society and Business Fellow.
Lauren is a devoted library advocate, a 15-year member of her beloved book club, and genuinely believes in the simple yet profound power of books to change lives.
Joyce Sheu
Board Chair
Joyce currently serves as Director Internal Communications at Activision Blizzard. In this role, she helps create and deliver the company-wide employee communications strategy, ensuring it’s tied to the company’s vision, values and business objectives. She also serves as the Global Chair for the ABK Women's Employee Network
Prior to joining Activision, Joyce was AVP of Transformation and Communications at Frontier Communications where she was responsible for HR initiatives. Earlier in her career, Joyce was a human capital consultant with Deloitte Consulting, where she delivered large-scale organizational transformations and post-merger integrations for clients in technology and consumer products.
Joyce graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and has an MBA from UCLA Anderson’s School of Management.
Elvira Armas
Board Member
Dr. Elvira G. Armas is the Director of the Center for Equity for English Learners (CEEL) and Affiliated Faculty in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, where she leads and supports CEEL’s P-21 local and national collaborative engagement initiatives. With over 35 years of experience, Dr. Armas has served as a bilingual classroom teacher, mentor, district advisor, staff developer, grant writer, and faculty at three institutions of higher education. She has also successfully led initiatives at the school, district, county, state, and university levels that include co-design, implementation and evaluation efforts focused on advancing equity and opportunity for English Learner and Multilingual students. Additionally, Dr. Armas has also served as writer, coordinator, director, and co-principal investigator of over 25 federal, state, and foundation-funded projects, managing up to $3 million dollar budgets.
Having co-authored several articles, policy briefs, and book chapters, her research focuses on teacher preparation, teaching and learning in bilingual settings, parent/community engagement, and assessment. Her work is published as lead author for the English Learner Master Plan Playbook: Developing Equitable Local Policies for Multilingual and English Learner Students and mas is also the lead author of the policy brief Bilingual Teacher Residencies in California: Findings and Recommendations for Policy and Practice, for example. She holds a teaching credential with bilingual authorization in Spanish as well as an administrative credential. She earned an Ed.D. from the University of Southern California with an emphasis in Language, Literacy and Learning.
Bianca Coker
Board Member
Dr. Bianca Coker has 30 years of experience in education. She taught math and STEM courses from grades 7 – college for over 20 years. Then she served families at the district and regional levels as a math and science coordinator. Bianca is currently the owner/operator of a new Sylvan Learning Center serving Brentwood, Santa Monica, and Pacific Palisades. She understand how critical early literacy is to a child’s current and future academic success. She believes in the mission of Ready Set Read and supports the mission as a member of the program committee. Bianca and her husband Jerry new to Santa Monica and love their new location. They look forward to contributing to the community and being able to explore more of what California has to offer.
Kyle Forrest
Board Member
Kyle Forrest is the Chief Marketing Officer for Deloitte Consulting's Human Capital Consulting practice, responsible for identifying emerging trends for Deloitte's clients and developing research-backed eminence. Kyle also advises organizations on the human-related aspects of significant business events such as mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and business transformations.
Outside of work, Kyle enjoys spending his time with his wife, daughter, and dog taking advantage of the L.A. outdoors, exercising, and of course, reading. Kyle graduated with a B.A. in Psychology and Sports Management from Rice University. Kyle earned an M.B.A. from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Alex Gostomelsky
Board Member
Alex is a serial entrepreneur, startup advisor, and investor. He has led venture and corporate development projects with early stage startups up to the F1000, bringing corporate strategy and go-to-market expertise to critical initiatives. Previously, Alex launched, and later exited, a cryptocurrency hedge fund, where he served as COO and led fundraising. He began his career in banking and holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson.
Ashely Lewis Hunter
Board Member
Ashley currently works as a primary care physician at UCLA in Santa Monica and supervises resident physicians at Venice Family Clinic. She also co-teaches an advocacy course for resident physicians at UCLA. When she isn’t working, she loves spending time with her family and reading with her children.
Matt Kaplan
Matt has been a children’s entertainment marketing executive for over 10 years. Currently, Matt leads Sales Development for WildBrain, spearheading the development, packaging and execution of ad sales content solutions for brands and sponsors across WildBrain’s many digital platforms including YouTube and Roblox.
Matt received his MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and his BS from Boston University. In his spare time, he enjoys the rewards of reading with his two daughters.
Betsy Marsolan
Board Member
Betsy is the co-founder of Miles to Row, a diverse and inclusive children’s book shop. Each month, new stories are featured that celebrate race, religion, ethnicity, identity, families, and disabilities. She is passionate about helping children to have access to stories that both reflect themselves as well as give them insight into others.
Prior to starting her book shop, Betsy served in various technical leadership positions within CBS Interactive as well as General Electric. She graduated with a BS in Industrial Engineering from Columbia University and has earned an MBA from UCLA Anderson’s School of Management.
Outside of work, Betsy enjoys running and is an avid reader. She also serves on the board and volunteers for several nonprofits supporting CHARGE Syndrome, a rare disease that her son has, as well as advocates for special education within SMMUSD. She lives in Santa Monica with her husband and two children.
Jen Nguyen
Jen currently works in Product Pricing and Packaging Strategy at Salesforce where she works at the intersection of strategy, analytics, and product to develop data driven and customer centric monetization strategies. Her key areas of expertise include: Energy & Utilities, Financial Services, SaaS and Sustainability.
In addition to her board service at Ready, Set, Read, Jen extends her expertise through her service on the boards of Salesforce Women in Product and the Tiyya Foundation.
Jen graduated with a double B.S. in Pure Mathematics and Statistics from UCLA. She earned an M.S. in Pure Mathematics from RPI.
Karen Sack
Board Member
Karen Sack is the CFO for Disney Entertainment Television, a role she’s held since 2023. She oversees Financial Planning & Analysis, Business Strategy and Production Finance across Disney Entertainment’s global television networks, including ABC, Disney Channel, Freeform, FX and National Geographic, as well as its television studios, including 20th Television, 20th Television Animation, ABC Signature and FX Productions.
Up until 2023, Karen was the Executive Vice President of Finance for FX Networks and FX Productions (FX’s in-house studio). Prior to joining FX in 2009, she worked at Fox Filmed Entertainment in various Finance roles, starting out in International Home Entertainment, then as VP, Finance at Fox Atomic (film production/distribution label) and then as VP, Operations Strategy.
Prior to joining Fox in 2000, Karen spent 2 years as a Financial Analyst in the High Yield Fixed Income group of Trust Company of the West.
Karen has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from UCLA. She lives in Pacific Palisades with her husband and daughter.
Heidi Thompson
Board Member
After working in international finance for Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers and then starting a family, Heidi shifted her focus entirely to large nonprofits in an effort to get more involved in impacting the community.
Heidi currently owns and runs Hire Motives, a boutique executive recruiting firm serving a broad range of industries. Heidi has her MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School and her BBA in finance from the University of Kentucky. She lives with her husband and three boys in Manhattan Beach.
Alfredo Valverde
Board Member
Alfredo is a strong proponent of education. He brings many years of tutoring and instruction experience. He has served as an advocate for STEM, and wider adoption of the International Baccalaureate program.
Alfredo is a Quantitative Research Associate at Capital Group, focusing on systematic portfolio construction. Prior to joining Capital, he worked as a Guidance & Control Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, where he developed and implemented flight control algorithms.
Alfredo holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, with an emphasis in spacecraft control, from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Merrily Weiss
Founder
Merrily Weiss founded Ready, Set, Read! in 1999 to address the need for literacy resources and training in Los Angeles area preschools. To develop the organization and programs, she drew upon her years of experience as a multimedia producer/developer and as a mother and classroom volunteer.