We are a group of creative and passionate San Francisco Bay Area locals who have come together to build a company around the inevitability that each and every one of us must face, death. We seek to create a comprehensive resource to help educate people about their options around death and dying, and to encourage an open dialogue about an uncomfortable subject. Our intent is to bring together a community of people who respect the individual emotional needs of each other. All of us at SevenPonds would love to hear from you. Additions, improvements and submissions to our site are appreciated. Please do not hesitate to contact us.
Suzette Sherman
Founder/CEO
A Midwestern girl at heart, Suzette loves wind, trees, and being surrounded by anything beautiful. She is a designer who seeks meaning in every aspect of life, and her Myers-Briggs Inventory ranks high on feeling. These things explain Suzette’s passion to change how we think, feel, and observe the end-of-life.
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Emma Frischmuth
Lead Creative Designer
An adventure seeker and storyteller, Emma loves new ideas, the thrill of connecting with interesting people, and above all having fun. She thinks holistically and enjoys taking in a barrage of information, distilling what is most important from it. Emma intends to shape the cultural outlook on death through SevenPonds.
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Rob Shaw
CFO Consultant
An East Coaster who has adapted to the ever changing ways of Silicon Valley, Robert has spent his entire career helping companies with their finances and operations. While SevenPonds represents another opportunity to push the bar further, it also presents a way for Robert to also address his own mortality and questions regarding end-of-life.
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Russell Ward
Chief Architect
Russell is an unusually kinetic Australian who codes like lightning and now loves living in the U.S. of A. As both a people person and problem solver, Russell’s passionate about helping people reach others and gain access to information and services, using the best possible web technologies. When not coding, he can be spotted sitting at a new coffee house enjoying his discovery while contemplating his next startup move over an espresso.
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Hedieh Haghighi
Marketing & PR Strategist
Hedieh is not your usual girl: she is a full fledged driver who possesses a deep startup fire. At any given moment she is either multitasking on a startup or supporting the love of her life, Kyle. A marketing maven who is constantly strategizing, Hedieh is the force behind spreading the word about SevenPonds, worldwide.
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Tiffany McColl
Marketing Assistant
Spending most of her childhood in theatrical productions, Tiffany now wishes to use her creativity and fervor for communication to gain experience in marketing and advertising. She is currently a student at San Francisco State University; in her free time, she enjoys watching foreign films with her cat, exploring the streets of San Francisco with her dog, and bacon desserts. Being part of the inner workings of a start-up company has been an exciting learning experience for her.
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Jeff Muhleman
VP of Sales Consultant
A pragmatic dreamer, Jeff loves to create new things whether its a new BBQ sauce, a song, or a marketing strategy. He is a Bay Area native, husband, and father of two young roller hockey players/future rock stars. More of a thinker than a feeler, Jeff embraces the practical side of planning for end-of-life.
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Susan Jones
Regional Sales Director
Growing up in a small, Alabama town, Susan has always enjoyed challenging traditional thinking. That curiosity coupled with her outgoing personality led to a career in sales that dates back to her Girl Scout days. Passionate about media, football, and overpriced shoes, Susan strives to spread a little Southern hospitality via her work at SevenPonds.
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Sergio Mariscal
Sales and Marketing Associate
Growing up in a small town in California's Central Coast, Sergio's dreams and ambitions were never limited by his surroundings. He migrated to San Francisco-- along with his golden retriever, Dallas-- where his knack for being a jack of all trades has led him to his dream of being at a startup. When not pushing himself at work, he can be found pushing himself at the gym.
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Liz Matsushita
Content Editor
Liz is a lifelong San Franciscan whose goal is to travel the world. She believes that her voracious reading, vanilla latte habit, and master's degree in Middle Eastern history all helped her become the distinctive writer she is today. Through language and her work at SevenPonds, Liz hopes to foster new perspectives on the end-of-life experience.
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Dana Sitar
Blog Writer
Dana recently moved to the Bay Area from Wisconsin, where she lived all of her life. She has a passion for seeing new places and meeting new people, and especially for sharing their stories. Dana's diverse background, experiences, and interests led her to SevenPonds, where she can combine her passion for writing with a love of learning new things and breaking social taboos.
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Kelly Larsen
Blog Writer
As a writer who realized her passion early, Kelly used to bring piles of books to her father to read to him at night. She loves exploring San Francisco and drinks too much coffee. At SevenPonds, she gets to put her major, English Literature, to use by analyzing the end-of-life experience in books and poetry.
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Katie Ryan
Blog Writer
After surviving childhood in Southern California, Katie now takes refuge in San Francisco where she also goes to school. Upon discovery of her mathematical ineptitude, she turned to writing and has never looked back since. At SevenPonds, she enjoys exercising her creative side and celebrating her longtime love of nature.
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Antal Polony
Blog Writer
Antal is as notable as his unusual Hungarian name. Raised and still residing in the Oakland area, when he's not writing he can be found walking Lake Merritt, reading copiously, or attempting to stay sharp with the piano. He’s currently completing his first novel, which he calls a political thriller/family drama, and developing informative and creative content for SevenPonds on all aspects of death & dying.
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Lisa Berman
Advisor
Lisa Berman is an executive with extensive retail experience in premium brands throughout the United States. She is the former President and CEO of the Picture People, the largest national freestanding portrait studio, owned by Hallmark. Berman also led Sales and Operations as Vice President for fashion retailer, Limited; home furnishings brand, Pottery Barn; and elite fashion leader, Guess? As the CEO of JimmyJane and an advisor to SevenPonds, she relishes in the ultimate of all true business challenges: overcoming taboos.
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Suzette Sherman
Director
As Founder of SevenPonds, Suzette Sherman employs her design-oriented thinking, prior business experience, and branding background to open the conversation on death. With a love of business prior to SevenPonds, she ran her own interior design firm for over a decade. Her background in retail design has lead her through the preeminent branding offices of Walker-Group/CNI, Desgrippes Gobe and Associates, and into the inner workings of one of the largest corporations in the world, General Motors Design Headquarters. For many years, she was a researcher with the Solid Waste Division of the Environmental Defense Fund in NYC, where she was awarded two National Endowment for the Arts grants to research the ecological design possibilities of our everyday products. She has written for many publications on the subject and was selected for Who's Who In America - 47th Edition, 1992-1993.
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Joe Sehee
Director
Joe Sehee is founder of the Green Burial Council, an independent, tax-exempt, nonprofit organization working to make funerals more meaningful, simple, and sustainable. Joe began working as a consultant in the field of funeral service in 1999, and is regarded as one of the leading experts on conservation burial, a concept he coined in 2005 that encourages the use of end-of-life rituals as a means of acquiring, restoring, and stewarding natural areas. A former Jesuit lay minister and Peabody Award-winning journalist, he is a Senior Fellow at the Environmental Leadership Program, a Property Environment Research Center Enviro-preneur, and a Commissioner on the Sustainable Santa Fe Commission.
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Peter Stathis
Director
Peter Stathis is the principal founder of San Francisco-based Virtual Studio, a collaborative product design and strategic development venture founded in 1990. Projects encompass a wide range of furniture, and lighting products. His work has been widely featured within design and business press, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and Inc. and Fast Company magazines. His designs have earned numerous awards, including; the International Design Excellence Award (IDEA), the Spark Design and Architecture Award and the prestigious Red Dot Design Award. Stathis exhibits internationally and is included in the permanent collections of major museums such as The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York
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