Our Board

Eddie Scher —  President

Eddie specializes in strategic communications and public interest advocacy around water and social justice issues. Eddie served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Uruguay and returned to get a Masters in City Planning at MIT. He began his career as a mediator, helping resolve scientifically complex, politically controversial public policy issues. As the communication director for public interest groups and a news magazine he has led strategy for high profile national advocacy campaigns. And as a writer and editor he has helped tell the stories of elected officials, human rights leaders, astronauts, actors, artists, and other superheroes. Eddie currently works as a public advocate at the California Public Utilities Commission. Eddie and his wife, Melina, co-lead the world’s first and foremost industrial ragtime band -- Parlor Tricks.

Wendy Parkman —  Secretary

Everything Wendy learned about circus came from being in San Francisco in the mid-70s when the Pickle Family Circus was born. She had her first taste of performing in a circus ensemble in 1975 with Make-A-Circus, presenting free shows and circus skills workshops in parks throughout the city. She has been captivated and dedicated ever since to the basic, teachable, life-changing skills that are circus arts. She went on to perform with the Pickle Family Circus as an aerialist, acrobat, and juggler. She performed with the Flying Karamozov Brothers in three iterations of The Comedy of Errors, culminating at Lincoln Center. As well as teaching in after school programs and schools throughout the Bay Area, she co-founded the Pickle Family Circus School, now Circus Center. Almost as much fun as performing, she truly enjoyed teaching circus arts at The Urban High School in San Francisco for three decades, focusing on trust, the joys of collaboration, and the excitement of learning something you thought was impossible.  What she loves about circus is: it takes a village, it cultivates confidence and interdependence, it brings joy, and there is always another trick to be learned or invented.

Olgica Bakajin

Olgica Bakajin and Richard Simon (bio below) first encountered Circus Bella in 2009 at Fort Mason when they and their children were entranced by the amazing show. Both parents were impressed that, after the first show, both the 2-year-old and 5-year-old spontaneously declared that they would remain, for two hours, in the same place so they could see the second performance. Soon after that, Olgica and Rich joined a CB fundraiser and surprised other attendees by having no personal connection to anyone on the Circus Bella team. They've been hooked ever since.

Olgica was born in Yugoslavia and came to the United States to earn her BA at the University of Chicago. She went on to graduate with a PhD in Physics from Princeton University. Named a Lawrence Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, she moved to California and later continued there as a staff scientist, publishing papers in microfluidics and nanotechnology. She left LLNL in 2009 to form Porifera, a company developing forward osmosis membrane technology. She continues today as CEO of Porifera, providing membrane systems to many industries.

Dominque Jando

Born in Paris, Dominique Jando has had a long and distinguished career in the theatre and the circus, which continues to this day. From 1983 to 2003, he has served as Associate Artistic Director for the Big Apple Circus, and he is the co-founder and curator of the very successful Circopedia.org — an online international circus encyclopedia created by the Big Apple Circus.

Additionally, Dominique is a highly respected circus historian (he has published five books on the history of circus and allied arts, including The Big Apple Circus — 25 Years! to celebrate the Circus’s 25th anniversary), as well as an illustrator and graphic artist. He has designed many theatre and circus posters in his native France, some of which have become classics of the genre and can be found in several books on poster art. Over the years, he has also produced many anonymous illustrations used in Big Apple Circus materials…

Dominique is married to former trapeze artist Elena Panova; together they live in San Francisco, surrounded by an impressive performing art library, a collection of rare circus prints, and two cats fending for attention.

Jordan Miller

Jordan grew up in San Francisco and has fond memories of attending the Pickle Family Circus in the park as a child. Jordan co-founded RealityCap Inc, a computer vision software company which was an early pioneer in visual inertial sensor fusion, and which was acquired by Intel Corp. Prior to that Jordan was a software engineer and derivatives trader at Highbridge Capital Management on the convertible bond arbitrage desk. Jordan received his BS in Engineering and Applied Science with a focus in Computational Neural Systems from Caltech. Jordan has advised many small businesses from restaurants to tech startups on how to align their capital structure and financing with their business models.

Serafina Miller

Serafina Miller is a Principal Health Consultant at Mercer.  She partners with employers to ensure their employee benefits programs integrate with compensation strategies and business objectives, as well as aligning with organizations’ broader Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) strategies, including accelerating DEI through benefits for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+. 

Serafina has worked in the insurance industry since 1998, beginning her career at Principal Financial Group. She spent six years working at KBR Insurance Services where she specialized in small group account management, as well as six years at ArlenGroup where she worked with employer groups ranging in size from 200 - 1,200 employee lives in multiple industry niches including banking, bio-technology, transportation companies, high tech, engineering firms, and law firms. Her experience also includes unions and MEWAs.

She also currently serves as the Interim Board President for the Art Deco Society of California.  She and her two daughters are dedicated fans and supporters of Circus Bella.

Susan Munn

Susan Munn was the CFO at the Urban School of San Francisco, an independent college preparatory high school, for over 20 years and now consults with several independent schools throughout the bay area.  She has served on the Board of Trustees at Children’s Day School, Martin Luther Tower (an affordable senior housing facility), and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Prior to working in the field of education she held positions at the San Francisco Opera, Affiliate Artists, Inc, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and the Lake George Opera Festival.  She has a BA in music from Chatham University and an MA in Arts Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Most significantly, she took High Flying Abigail to her first trapeze class.