Forever Shine Campaign Committee

Campaign Co-Chair, Board of Trustees Vice Chair

Adam Karr knows what it means to have someone invest in his potential. A first-generation college student from Kankakee, Illinois, he attended Northwestern on scholarship and built a career as president and portfolio manager of Orbis Investments, a global investment firm. Together with his wife, Tonia, he created and endowed the K5 Foundation, which works to close the educational opportunity gap for motivated young people from underserved communities. An alumnus of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), he later founded SEO Scholars San Francisco, which now serves more than 500 low-income, first-generation public high school students in the Bay Area. He holds an undergraduate degree from Northwestern and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Campaign Co-Chair

Tonia Karr is an active community volunteer and longtime supporter of nonprofit organizations that serve youth from under-resourced communities. Karr is a member of the board of directors of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health. She is a former member of Stanford University’s Board of Trustees and KIPP Bay Area Schools Board of Trustees and former vice chair of Meritus College Fund. Previously, Karr was a vice president in the real estate finance group at Credit Suisse First Boston. She began her career at Kidder, Peabody & Co. in the firm’s real estate investment banking group. Karr earned a BA in economics from Stanford and an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business.

Trustee

Du Chai is a managing director at Horsley Bridge Partners, a global private equity fund-of-funds firm headquartered in San Francisco. He serves on the firm’s executive and investment committees and sits on the advisory boards of several venture capital and buyout funds. Prior to joining Horsley Bridge Partners, Chai spent a decade at the Northwestern University Endowment, managing its private investments and real assets portfolios. He began his career at JPMorgan as a financial analyst before transitioning to institutional investing. Chai holds a BA in economics from the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, and co-chairs the Weinberg College Board of Visitors. Born in Korea and raised in the Chicagoland area, Chai now resides in Menlo Park, California, with his wife, Sarah, and their three children.

Sarah Yun Chai holds a BA in mathematics and sociology from Northwestern University and began her career in technology consulting at Accenture before earning an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and moving into brand management at Kraft Foods. After her corporate career, she dedicated time to family while remaining actively engaged in her community through volunteer work with CASA, LifeMoves, and her children’s schools and sports teams. Chai brings a thoughtful, community-oriented perspective shaped by both professional experience and sustained service. In her free time, she enjoys tennis, mahjong, and reading.

Trustee

Valerie Friedman was the head of business development and a principal at Bracebridge Capital from 2006 through 2024. In this role, she oversaw marketing and investor relations and was responsible for the firm’s client relationships across a diverse, global base of institutional investors for the $14 billion hedge fund. Friedman previously worked at Salomon Brothers Inc. and Citigroup Global Markets Inc., where she was a managing director and senior salesperson in the global fixed income department specializing in emerging markets. Friedman serves on the Trustee Advisory Board of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and has served on the boards of UJA in Greenwich, Connecticut, and SheGives. Friedman received her MBA in finance from Columbia Business School and BA from Northwestern in political science. Her three sons and daughter-in-law each attended Northwestern.

Mark Friedman is currently retired after working in various marketing roles at American Home Products, Corporate Turnaround, Medical Economics, Warner-Lambert, and Saatchi & Saatchi. Friedman has served on several nonprofit boards and has a passion for fundraising and making community connections. He currently serves on the Greater Boston Food Bank’s Board of Directors. Friedman also served on the boards of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, Brookline High School 21st Century Fund, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies Boston-Haifa Connection and volunteered as a tutor in the Boston public schools. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and received an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Trustee

Purnima Puri is a governing partner of HPS Investment Partners and is the portfolio manager for the public credit strategies, which include various funds and managed accounts. Prior to joining HPS in 2007, Puri was a principal at Redwood Capital Management, a credit opportunities hedge fund. Before joining Redwood, she was with Goldman Sachs for five years on both the Credit Arbitrage Desk, a proprietary trading desk at Goldman Sachs, and in the Principal Investment Area. From 1993 to 1995, Puri was part of the Lazard Frères Restructuring and Mergers and Acquisitions Groups. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Northwestern University and the Board of Dean’s Advisors of Harvard Business School. She is also a former member of the Financial Sector Advisory Council for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Puri holds a BA in mathematics from Northwestern and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Richard Barrera has been a public markets investor for 20+ years, an extensive portion of which focused on opportunities across healthcare services. In addition to co-founding Brighton Health Partners in 2021, Barrera serves as CEO and portfolio manager of Roystone Capital Management, an investment management firm which he founded in 2012. Prior to founding Roystone, Barrera co-managed investment portfolios at Redwood Capital Management LLC from 2009 to 2012 and at Glenview Capital Management from 2002 to 2009. He served as chair of the finance committee and a member of the audit committee of Pacific Gas & Electric from 2019 to 2020. Barrera graduated from the Wharton School with a BS in Accounting and Finance in 1993 and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1997.

Keech Combe Shetty is executive chair of Combe Incorporated, where she represents the third generation of her family to manage the company’s operations. Balancing heritage with innovation, Combe Inc. is considered to be the most personal personal care company, which includes global brands such as Just For Men, Vagisil, Virtue Labs, Astroglide, and Sea Bond. Combe Shetty is an active leader in her industry’s trade associations and serves on the boards and executive committees of both the Consumer Health Products Association and Personal Care Products Council, which she previously chaired. Combe Shetty earned her BA from Northwestern University and MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. She is passionate about education and serves on Kellogg’s Global Advisory Board as well as the board of the Stephen Gaynor School in New York City. She also serves on the One Acre Fund Leader Circle.

Akshay Shetty is the CEO of Combe Incorporated, where he is leading the company’s transformation into a more data-driven, digitally enabled consumer health and personal care business. Shetty is focused on integrating technology, analytics, and modern marketing to accelerate product innovation and growth as well as improve decision-making across the organization. Prior to Combe Inc., he held roles in investment banking and consulting. Shetty holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and a BA in economics from Whitman College, where he is a trustee emeritus.