OUR TEAM

Sarah Lyding serves as the Executive Director of The Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, Ms. Lyding was the Director of Development at Pasadena Playhouse and before that, served six years at Center Theatre Group as part of the fundraising team. Under her leadership at Pasadena Playhouse, annual fundraising increased more than 25% and the organization’s Artistic Director, Sheldon Epps, received the James Irvine Foundation’s prestigious California Leadership Award. Before Center Theatre Group, Ms. Lyding worked for the educational program Elderhostel in California’s Central Coast area.

Ms. Lyding serves on the Board of Century of Compassion, a small non-profit organization dedicated to teaching compassion and promoting volunteerism, and Theatre @ Boston Court. Additionally, she has provided consulting services to small not-for-profit theatre companies.

As Foundation Coordinator, Katie Mackenzie develops grantmaking strategies with the President and Executive Director, maintains relationships with grantee organizations, and provides program-related research. Most recently, she served as an intern for Grameen America where she assisted the Executive Director in developing Grameen America’s West Coast Division for 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Professor Muhammad Yunus. Prior to Grameen America, Ms. Mackenzie lived abroad in Italy for two years where she worked at FAO (United Nations) in Rome aiding in the implementation of an international conference, as well as taught Business English. She received a Master’s degree in Medieval and Early Modern History, with an emphasis on the feminine perspective, from the University of Bristol in England and completed a Bachelor of Arts in Women’s Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz.