Kaufman Music Center Welcomes New Trustees



Kaufman Music Center’s Board of Trustees has elected four new members: Kevin Cho, Tina Eskridge, Eileen Shin and Gil Spitzer.

Board Chair Orli Shaham says, “The Governance Committee and Leadership Team reviewed more than 60 prospective candidates, and I am so thrilled to welcome our 2021 class of Trustees. Each of them brings a breadth of professional experience and tremendous passion for music education.”

Executive Director Kate Sheeran says, “We are honored to welcome such thoughtful and strategic leaders to the Board, who will bring a wealth of new opportunities to the Center. They are a great fit for us because of their deep connections to our mission, and each of these new trustees will play a key role in Kaufman Music Center’s next phase of growth. They have already hit the ground running!”


Kevin Cho

Kevin Cho is a Partner in McKinsey & Company’s North American Banking & Securities Practice and serves as global leader of WAM Solutions, a proprietary suite of data, analytics, and SaaS offerings for wealth and asset managers. He advises leading financial services institutions on topics including growth strategy, mergers and acquisitions, sales and marketing, operating model design, and advanced analytics. Kevin has also contributed to several McKinsey pro bono efforts with performing arts organizations in New York City on topics including business development and audience engagement.

Prior to McKinsey, Kevin co-founded and led marketing for an ecommerce startup focused on small and medium retail businesses, and served in advisory and investing roles at SolarCity and Morgan Stanley. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and holds an S.B. in Management Science.

Kevin grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and began violin studies when he was five years old. He completed the Music Teacher’s Association of California’s Certificate of Merit music study program and was a performer with the California Youth Symphony for nine years, including two international tours.


Tina Eskridge

Tina Eskridge is a global marketing executive who currently serves as the Head of Marketing Excellence within Microsoft Advertising, where she maintains responsibility for digital marketing strategy, marketing tech, and inclusion with a deep focus on delivering best in class customer experiences. Tina previously served as the head of Microsoft’s inclusion marketing and product strategy across all cloud platforms in addition to leading Microsoft’s channel operations organization, where she was responsible for all aspects of strategic channel engagement across the U.S., Canada, and Latin America regions supporting device sales and operations for some of the world’s top retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Gamestop, and Costco among others.

Tina moved to Seattle to join Microsoft in 2012 to take on a global marketing role, after spending more than 17 years working in strategic management roles across the retail, financial services, software, consumer goods and education industries.

Tina is an active angel investor, non-profit board member, and continual champion for diversity, having previously served as chairperson for Microsoft’s Black employee resource group as well as currently serving as executive sponsor to Howard University. Tina was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, where she cultivated a love of music at an early age through private instruction and performance competition as a flutist. She earned a dual B.S. degree in marketing management and transportation and distribution management from Syracuse University and an MBA from Howard University. She currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. 


Eileen Shin

Eileen J. Shin is a former musician, a parent of two middle school children who study music at Kaufman Music Center’s Lucy Moses School, and currently a practicing lawyer. She holds a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, a M.M. in piano performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music and a B.A in modern thought and literature with honors in humanities from Stanford University. She studied music in France as a Rotary Foundation scholar. As a student, she performed as a soloist with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Eastman Philharmonia, as a chamber musician at Tanglewood and the Ravinia Steans Institute of Music, and as a soloist for broadcasts on WQXR and France Musique.

Eileen is a Managing Director and Associate General Counsel in the Corporate and Investment Bank of JPMorgan Chase & Co., where she provides legal and regulatory advice for capital markets transactions and the research department. She regularly serves as a faculty member at the Practicing Law Institute, is a member of the securities regulation committee at the New York City Bar Association and has spoken at conferences of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. She was previously a corporate associate at the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, where she served as assistant corporate secretary to the Board of Trustees of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy organization.

Eileen’s daughter Analise studies violin at Lucy Moses School with Lynelle Smith, and her son Xavier plays the cello in the LMS Suzuki Program, studying with Susanna Giles. Both children participate in the LMS Advanced String Ensemble. Eileen’s husband Roger dabbles in many instruments in his free time. He held a weekly virtual workshop during the pandemic to teach friends to play the ukulele and has recently originated “Tuneful Connections,” a live acoustic guitar trivia game for social events. In recent years, he has brushed the dust off his high school violin so that the family can perform as an ensemble every year for Kaufman Music Center’s Day of Musical Action.


Gil Spitzer

Gil Spitzer is a retired Educational Psychologist who served in that capacity with the New York City public school system for over 25 years and has also taught part-time at Long Island University as adjunct professor. Gil received his B.A. degree from City College of New York, M.A. from NYU and PH.D from Hofstra University. His connection to music dates to his middle school years as a clarinetist with the school band, an oboist with the high school orchestra, and playing saxophone at parties and at Catskill hotels during the summers.

More recently, Gil has been a student in Lucy Moses School’s Jazz Program for a number of years and has participated as an adult camper at a variety of summer jazz camps in the U.S. and abroad. He has served on the LMS Advisory Board, and together with his wife, has established a young musician’s scholarship fund at the school. For the past three years, Gil has served on the Board of The Walden School, a summer performance and composers’ camp in Dublin, New Hampshire. He is a strong advocate for music education and knows first-hand of its importance in developing not only artistic appreciation, but in character building and enhancing a sense of community.

Gil believes that music sustains us through life and recorded his first CD, “Falando Docemente” (“Speak Sweet,” Zoho Records) in 2018.

Learn more about Kaufman Music Center's Leadership.

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