Election 2024 Information
2024 Election Results
The Board of Governors is comprised of fourteen members, twelve of whom are elected members of the SMUS Society. This year, four of the twelve elected positions were open to be filled and there were five candidates seeking election to those five positions.
The results of the election, as attested by the scrutineers appointed in accordance with the bylaws, are confirmed as follows: 441 ballots were cast and all 441 were valid ballots with zero empty ballots. No mail-in ballots were issued.
The candidates that have been elected to the Board are as follows:
- Ms. Shelly Berlin
- Dr. Shannon Hill (‘85)
- Ms. Karen Jawl (‘99)
- Ms. Rebekka Keough (‘03)
Please join us in congratulating these four successful candidates who will officially take office for a three-year term following the 2024 AGM. We extend our thanks to all the candidates for offering their service for the governance of the school.
Chris Talbot ’87 and Matt Howard,
Chairs of the Nominations and Governance Committees
This SMUS Election 2024 website is the primary resource for Society Members to get to know the candidates. The first section contains the Nominations Committee and Board of Governors’ recommended Board slate of Shelly Berlin, Shannon Hill, Karen Jawl, and Rebekka Keough. The second section contains information about Karl-Eric Brière who has self-nominated pursuant to the SMUS Bylaws. The words in that section are his own.
2024 Recommended Board Slate
One of the important duties to the SMUS Society of the Board and the Board’s Nominations Committee is to thoroughly assess the various needs of the Board and its committees. This is done rigorously with the focused work of the Nominations Committee over the course of the full year, from a perspective of skills needed, succession planning of key roles, diversity and other important focus areas. There is a thorough evaluation of both returning governors as well as new candidates, as summarized in the Election Overview section above. This culminates in the recommendation to the Board of a recommended Board Slate of candidates to fill the vacant seats. The Board then deliberates this recommendation and approves a Board Slate to recommend to the Society.
This year, the Nominations Committee and the Board of Governors of SMUS is proud to bring forward a highly qualified and experienced board slate, that includes three of our most experienced returning governors and one strong new board candidate. This slate includes our current sitting Board Chair as well as the sitting chairs of several of our most critical and impactful committees – including Chairs of Advancement, Facilities, Risk Management, Sustainability, Head of School Search and Strategic Planning Committees, as well as strong contributors to many other board committees. It is no exaggeration to state that these returning governors are the heart of our Board and its committees today and we hope you will support their nomination.
These returning governors represent a collective 18 years of tireless and generous volunteer board and committee service that are so important to the governance of our school. These individuals are the cogs that help our board function at a high level, while also bringing soft skills in teamwork and leadership that are so important in any effective team setting. This is a critical time in our school, as we look forward to the Middle School expansion project and as we start to welcome and onboard our new Head of School, Dr. Jeff Aitken. These returning governors are each in key leadership positions for these major events and their continued oversight for the next three years is critical to the successful and efficient execution of these key events. We are also recommending one new board member in this year’s board slate - a candidate who brings important skills in multiple areas the Board has identified as skill gaps, especially for strategic issues in education around the use of technology.
We remain committed to diversity of this Board across many dimensions and with the addition of this Board slate to this Board, the Board composition for the elected governors will include: six female and six male, nine alumni and three non-alumni, six current SMUS parents and six not current SMUS parents, five governors whose careers have mostly been in BC and seven governors whose careers have been international and finally, five governors with exposure to school boarding and seven with day school exposure. Critically, this Board will also have the blend of skillsets needed to perform the board duties that this Board and its committees require – expertise in law, finance, general management, facilities, sustainability, technology, human resources, and leadership. We work proactively to ensure this Board does not become an echo chamber, so we actively seek those with diverse perspectives to lend to debates on important issues. The Nominations Committee continues to work hard to seek out candidates that are team players and that bring balanced and diverse perspectives to the work of governance, while always ensuring that the best candidates are the ones that are recommended to the Society.
In the meantime, we encourage you to learn more about this year’s recommended Board Slate:
Shelly Berlin
SMUS Board Service: 9 years as an elected governor. Currently Board Chair.
Serves on the following SMUS Committees: Chair of Advancement, Chair of Risk Management, Chair of Head of School Search, former Chair of Strategic Planning, serves on ad-hoc Opportunities Committee.
Relationship to SMUS: Parent to Kat Eaton ’24 and Tommy Eaton ’26
Primary Occupation: Co-founding and managing partner of management consulting firm
Place of Residence: Victoria, BC.
Key Contributions, Attributes and Qualities:
- As the current Board Chair and with nine years experience on this Board, while chairing two of the Board’s critical committees, Shelly’s value and contributions to this Board cannot be over-stated.
- Shelly is the co-founding partner of management consulting firm Berlineaton practicing in strategy, process improvement and leadership development, with a particular focus on independent schools. This proven combination of leadership and team dynamics together with the domain expertise has recently led to her appointment by this Board to the Chair role.
- Previously chairing the Strategic Planning committee during the development of the Floreat strategic plan as well as the Head of School Search committee that successfully culminated in the recent appointment of Dr. Jeff Aitken as our new Head of School starting in August 2025, Shelly is uniquely experienced to lead this board into the onboarding of the new Head of School while delivering on the remaining elements of Floreat.
- Shelly has dedicated an invaluable amount of time over the past 9 years to critical Committee and Board service, while demonstrating a level-headed, inclusive, and thoughtful approach to leadership and team building. This has contributed to making our Board as effective as it can be in delivering on its responsibilities to govern SMUS now and into the future.
Read a detailed Q&A with Shelly Berlin
Shannon Hill
SMUS Board Service: 6 years as an elected governor.
Serves on the following SMUS Committees: Governance, Head Evaluation, Head of School Search and formerly Facilities
Relationship to SMUS: Alumna ’85, Husband Greg Southgate ‘84, Parent to Lainey Quinn ’16, Julia Southgate ’18, Claire Southgate ‘21
Primary Occupation: Family practice physician
Place of Residence: Victoria, BC
Key Contributions, Attributes and Qualities:
- With six years of experience on our Board including serving on the critical Governance, Head Evaluation, Head of School Search and Facilities committees, Shannon brings invaluable experience and perspective, particularly as we look to onboard a new Head of School starting in 2025.
- Shannon’s experience in being part of the transformation of the school from a traditionally boys school to a co-educational school, with Shannon being part of the first year of girls in boarding at the school helps provide valuable perspective for the Board both in school boarding and in diversity, equity and inclusion.
- Shannon’s previous legal training and experience add value to her contributions on the Board generally and the Governance committee especially.
Read a detailed Q&A with Shannon Hill
Karen Jawl
SMUS Board Service: 3 years as an elected governor
Serves on the following SMUS Committees: Chair of Facilities Committee, Chair of Sustainability Committee, serves on Head of School Search Committee, Advancement Committee, Campus Master Plan Committee and ad-hoc Opportunities Committee
Relationship to SMUS: Alumna ‘99, Parent to Colton Kuiack ‘29
Primary Occupation: Managing Director of Jawl Properties Ltd.
Place of Residence: Victoria, BC
Key Contributions, Attributes and Qualities:
- In her three years on the Board, Karen has become an invaluable leader and tireless contributor, chairing both the Facilities and the Sustainability Committees and serving on a number of other important committees.
- Karen’s extensive experience in property development and management, together with her demonstrable expertise and leadership skills have been critical in the successful execution of the campus master plan development, including the Junior School Annex and now leading into the Middle School and STEAM projects.
- Similarly, Karen’s prior expertise and passion for sustainability has led the Sustainability Committee to admirable progress including several recent milestone achievements.
- This Board acknowledges and is deeply appreciative of Karen’s exemplary leadership and teamwork skills, together with her tireless work ethic and myriad of contributions to the school, making our school and our Board better each and every day.
Read a detailed Q&A with Karen Jawl
Rebekka Keough
SMUS Board Service: Newly proposed candidate for this year’s slate
Serves on the following SMUS Committees: Facilities Committee
Relationship to SMUS: Alumna ’03 (Head Girl), Parent to Carmen Alvarez Keough ’33 and Lucas Alvarez Keough ’35
Primary Occupation: Product Leader at Amazon
Place of Residence: Victoria, BC.
Key Contributions, Attributes and Qualities:
- Rebekka has been a strong contributor to the Facilities Committee, bringing needed technology expertise to the Board. With our upcoming STEAM project and with technology matters such as artificial intelligence, data breaches and ransomware becoming increasingly meaningful for school Boards to consider, Rebekka will bring an informed voice.
- Rebekka’s professional experience in both top-tier management consulting and general management, including P&L leadership for business units at Amazon, brings a breadth of expertise including in areas that the Board had identified as skills area gaps such as technology, marketing, finance and human resources.
- Rebekka’s leadership role at Amazon has also exposed her to a range of best practices and processes that will benefit this Board. One example of this is the leadership and teamwork principle at Amazon called “disagree and commit”, which emphasizes the importance of vigorous and constructive debate when making critical decisions, ultimately committing to the group decision while respecting the expertise of others during and after the debate. This exemplary commitment to constructive debate and teamwork is an important factor that this Board looks for in new Governors and we have been very impressed with Rebekka’s demonstrated mastery of these skills.
- Rebekka’s broad management skillset together with her experience in boarding and as a former Head Girl at the school also bring important perspectives to this board’s goal of ensuring diverse and informed contributions to Board matters.
Read a detailed Q&A with Rebekka Keough
2024 Self-Nominated Candidate
Karl-Eric Brière has self-nominated pursuant to the SMUS Bylaws. The words in this section are his own.
Karl-Eric Brière
SMUS Board Service: 3 years as elected governor
Serves on the following SMUS Committees: Advancement and Facilities Committees
Relationship to SMUS: Parent to Soie Liao-Brière '24, Roland Liao-Brière '15 and Leonard Liao-Brière '14.
Primary Occupation: Co-Founder of Simple Dream Publishing
Place of Residence: Victoria, BC
Key Contributions, Attributes and Qualities:
- During his tenure on the SMUS Board of Governors, Karl-Eric Brière has championed numerous initiatives aimed at enhancing transparency of the Board. In addition, Karl-Eric has worked to improve the Board's democratic representation of the SMUS community and fostering greater engagement with parents and alumni.
- Karl-Eric’s extensive experience overseeing product development, supply chains and manufacturing provide him with valuable insights into technology and innovation that directly align with the school’s aspirations for its STEAM program. Karl-Eric’s leadership was instrumental in developing the collaboration between SMUS and the Victoria Hand Project, offering students hands-on, real-world learning opportunities.
- Drawing on his experience of living and working across three continents, Karl-Eric has enriched Board discussions with a deeper understanding of global realities and the challenges and opportunities they afford SMUS.
- With over three decades of entrepreneurial experience, Karl-Eric has a unique and effective problem-solving approach. Karl-Eric has consistently sought to bring an innovative and independent perspective to the Board and committee discussions. He is focused on adding value and ensuring that SMUS is well-positioned for the future.