LFCoB Featured Alumni

Dalia Ceja followed her family into the wine business and is now the sales and marketing director at Ceja Vineyards, one of the few Latino-owned wineries in the Napa Valley. After earning a bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Marketing concentration from SF State, she helped transform her family’s winery into an internationally recognized brand. In 2011, she was named Woman of the Year by the Napa Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. In 2020, she received The North Bay Business Journal’s Latino Business Leadership Award. She serves on the board of NG: The Next Generation in Wine and participated in the Napa Valley Vintner’s Leadership Program. She holds an eMBA with a focus in wine business from Sonoma State University.

Gregory Fischbach is an American Internet entrepreneur, attorney, business executive, co-founder of video communication and content sharing company Rabbit and video game publisher Acclaim Entertainment, Inc., he had managed the company for 16 years as the CEO. He received his B.S. degree in economics from SF State in 1963.

Stephen Gillett is the chairman and chief executive officer at Verily, an Alphabet health technology company focused on research, care and public health to deliver on the promise of precision health and help people live healthier lives. He leads teams that create tools to accelerate data and evidence generation, products to enable more personalized care and science-based approaches to manage disease at a population level. 

Gillett is a highly recognized and sourced tech executive and thought leader who has 15 years of C-suite experience at some of the nation’s biggest brands, including Alphabet’s Chronicle, Symantec, Best Buy and Starbucks. 

Gillett’s achievements span industries and disciplines. He has been featured in Fortune’s “40 under 40” list, included in CNNMoney’s “Executive Dream Team” and selected as a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute. His influence in the health-care industry is underscored by his inclusion in The 2022 Healthcare Technology Report’s “Top 25 Healthcare Technology COOs” and his nomination to Modern Healthcare’s 2023 “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” list. His ingenuity extends beyond the corporate world: He was recognized by WIRED magazine as an innovative “Guild Master in World of Warcraft.” 

A devoted family man of Lebanese descent, he married his high school sweetheart, and together they have eight children living in Dallas. He is a board member for Discord, Dutch Bros and Granular Insurance. Amazon named him a bestselling author for his 2019 memoir “From Simi Valley to Silicon Valley.” 

Mohan Gyani set out to become a petroleum engineer but found his true calling in the business world. He played a key role in the IPO of AT&T Wireless and went on to serve as president and CEO of the company's Wireless Mobility Group. 

Currently he is an active investor in early stage companies and a seasoned executive with a wide range of experiences, including serving on numerous Public and Private company Boards in various industries and geographies. Some Public/Private Boards include, or have included, Digital Turbine, Synchronoss, AirLinQ, Safeway, Blackhawk Networks, Ruckus Wireless, Audience Inc.,SirF Technologies MUFG Union Bank, Keynote Systems, Mobile Telesystems (Russia), IDEA Cellular (India).

San Francisco native Evan Kidera is the co-founder and CEO of Señor Sisig, a trailblazing Filipino-fusion restaurant. Raised in a culinary environment, with his late father being a sushi chef, Kidera was no stranger to kitchens across San Francisco. However, by college, he discovered his true passion was business. Determined to marry his entrepreneurial drive with his roots, he chose to channel his expertise into an industry that felt like home — food. 

In 2010, inspired by the street food movement, Kidera partnered with childhood friend Gil Payumo to launch their first food truck. While earning his MBA at SF State, Kidera applied his business acumen to grow Señor Sisig from a single truck into a celebrated name in the Bay Area’s culinary scene. Fourteen years later, Señor Sisig boasts a fleet of food trucks and three brick-and-mortar restaurants in iconic locations, including the Mission District, San Francisco Ferry Building and Oakland. A fourth restaurant is set to open at Chase Center in 2025. 

Under Kidera’s leadership, Señor Sisig has gained national recognition, appearing in major publications and on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” The brand has played a key role in bringing Filipino flavors to a wider audience, popularizing it across the Bay Area and beyond. 

Kidera’s commitment to the community is equally strong. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Señor Sisig provided meals to frontline health care workers and communities in need. He maintains close ties with SF State, regularly speaking to business students and sharing insights on entrepreneurship. Above all, Kidera values his family, considering them his greatest achievement and source of joy. 

Gulshan Kumar is partner and vice president of sales of Fremont-based PATH (formerly PathWater), a producer of responsibly and locally sourced purified water in refillable aluminum water bottles. He hopes the company’s product will help phase out single-use plastic water bottles. PATH bottles are sold at 35,000 retailers across the country, including Sprouts, Safeway and San Francisco International Airport. The company also has partnerships with Intuit, Dropbox, Facebook, Tesla, Orange Theory and SF State.

After graduating from SF State’s undergraduate business administration program, he was ready for his next opportunity. He found it in an unlikely place: High school friends told him about their idea for a reusable water bottle company. He immediately saw the vision. “I believed in it. I saw the roadmap,” he said.

He joined PathWater in 2017, helping turn the early stage idea into a thriving company. But the road to success wasn’t without bumps. The first three years were far from glamorous. It was five people crammed into a 500-square foot office and a lot of hustling up and down the state trying to sell water bottles. “We would have 50 cases in the backseat of our cars and go door-to-door to 7-Elevens and schools, trying to build a brand,” he said. “That’s just the reality of entrepreneurship. It’s not pretty.”

Finally, after two years they secured an account with the Hayward Unified School District. The company started to feel viable, he says. And then more business began to trickle in. In the span of four years, PathWater went from being a local brand to a regional brand to a national brand.

In 1971 Kishore Kripalani, a young Indian immigrant, earned his master’s degree in business administration at San Francisco State University. While honing his marketing skills at a local advertising agency, he saw a market for upscale Indian restaurants in the United States and decided to pursue it. He imported spices, trained master chefs and brought one of India’s oldest white-tablecloth restaurant brands. He opened the Bay Area's first Gaylord India Restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. The top-rated restaurant now has locations worldwide.

Chris Larsen is an American business executive and angel investor best known for co-founding several Silicon Valley technology startups, including one based on peer-to-peer lending. He cofounded Ripple in 2012 to facilitate international payments for banks using blockchain technology. 

Larsen graduated from SF State with B.S. in international business and accounting in 1984. In April 2019, Chris Larsen together with his wife Lyna Lam, and the Rippleworks Foundation donated $25 million to the College of Business, establishing the Chris Larsen and Lyna Lam Funds for the College of Business. In honor of Lam-Larsen’s longtime support and generosity, the California State University has also announced the naming of the University’s College of Business the Lam Family College of Business.

Gilman Louie was still finishing his bachelor's degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in Information Systems, from SF State when he founded a successful computer-game company responsible for some of the biggest games on the market. Today, as a technology venture capitalist, he is helping other promising entrepreneurs develop their ideas. He co-founded and ran the CIA venture capital fund In-Q-Tel. With his company Nexa Corporation he designed and developed multiple computer games such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon flight simulator series. His company later merged with Spectrum Holobyte where he was CEO until its acquisition by Hasbro, after which he became Chief Creative Officer and General Manager of its Games.com group.

Andrew Ly immigrated to the United States from Vietnam in 1979 and without any prior knowledge of the English language earned degrees in computer science and business administration with a concentration in accounting. He founded award-winning Sugar Bowl Bakery in 1984 with his four brothers and became president and CEO of Ly Brothers Corporation in 1993, a parent company of Sugar Bowl Bakery. Today. Sugar Bowl Bakery is one of the largest family-owned and operated bakeries in Northern California, with customers worldwide, and was named one of the “Top 15 Food and Beverage Manufacturers in the Bay Area” by the San Francisco Business Times in 2008.

Under Ly's leadership, Sugar Bowl Bakery now has over 250 employees and two manufacturing plants and has garnered dozens of awards including the US Chamber of Commerce MBDA Supplier of the Year Award, the Asian Business Leadership Award, and the Mayor Gavin Newsom SBA Small Business of the Year.

George Marcus is the founder of the Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage Company has remained closely connected to his alma mater.

In 2018, George Marcus (B.A. in Economics, '65) and Judy Otten Marcus (B.A., ’62) generously funded and established the $25 million George and Judy Marcus Funds for Excellence in the Liberal Arts (the Marcus Funds), which endowed two new faculty chairs in the Creative Writing Department and two in the School of Cinema in the College of Liberal & Creative Arts. The Marcus Funds also support the renewal of facilities and faculty and student research through the George and Judy Marcus Awards for Faculty and Student Research. This funding has been transformational – the college has grown its programs, raised its profile and level of excellence, and exponentially expanded faculty and student research awards across disciplines.

Manny Mashouf founded bebe Inc. clothing line, the worldwide brand associated with chic, avant garde, sophisticated women including some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

Arriving in the U.S. from his native Iran with minimal English skills but with high aspirations, Mr. Mashouf rapidly mastered the language, then higher education. At San Francisco State University he explored many subjects beyond his political science major. 

Mr. Mashouf has never forgotten his roots at San Francisco State University. He is an 11-year member of the College of Business Advisory Board and has made significant donations to the College to help it be competitive in recruiting and hiring outstanding faculty. Generations of faculty and students in the arts will experience his generosity when the Mashouf Creative Arts Center opens. In 2005, the university named him its Alumnus of the Year.

As the world began to shrink for many in March 2020, Michael Norris’ world opened in new ways. After completing his final semester in San Francisco State University’s Executive MBA program that spring, he embarked on a new career path that provided a lifeline in the form of books to teens in all manner of crises — from wildfires to illness to refugees seeking asylum, giving it a name Teen Readers Society (TRS).

Charitable book donations are just part of the mission of TRS, the Santa Monica-based nonprofit Norris helped found during the pandemic with another organization’s other co-founder and executive director, Judit Langh (MBA, ’05). The organization’s goal is to reverse declining reading rates among teens, make books accessible to all communities and spread the joy of reading for pleasure.

Michael S. Richman is co-founder, president and CEO of NextCure, a biopharmaceutical company founded in 2015 committed to discovering and developing immune medicines to treat cancer and other immune-related diseases. Richman has worked in the biopharmaceutical sector since 1985, holding senior leadership positions at companies such as Amplimmune, MacroGenics, MedImmune and Chiron (now Novartis). Richman served as president and CEO of Amplimmune when it was acquired by AstraZeneca in 2013. He enrolled in SF State’s MBA program in the 1990s. He remembers fondly the diverse backgrounds of his peers, the knowledgeable professors, solving problems together in class, and the supportive faculty—especially Professor Neil Evans, who challenged Michael to build on his scientific interests through international business. When Michael graduated, that’s exactly what he did. Michael credits SF State with helping him to successfully pivot from research to business development, where he has built thriving biotech companies that are inventing new therapies for patients. While he has been a steadfast donor since 2000, Michael and his wife Kathleen H. Richman significantly deepened their commitment and support to the University in 2022 with a gift of $100,000 to the $25 Million Catalyze the Future campaign. The campaign benefits the University’s new Science & Engineering Innovation Center equipping it with state-of-the-art labs, tools, and technology. 

Norman Schwartz (B.A., ’74) is the president and CEO of Bio-Rad Laboratories, a Fortune 1000 company. He graduated with a degree in business administration, concentration in Finance, from the College of Business.

Norman Schwartz got an up-close view of biological science and what it took to be a Bio-Rad CEO at a very early age. In 1952, his dad, David, and his mom, Alice, founded Bio-Rad Laboratories (BIO) in a Quonset hut in Berkeley, California. Schwartz stayed in the family business — which is now a global $18 billion company with a stellar outperforming stock. In 2003, he replaced his dad as president and Bio-Rad CEO. He's also chairman of the company that develops and manufactures products for life science research and clinical diagnostics.

Pramukti Surjaudaja has been in banking for more than 30 years. He was the CEO and president director before assuming the role as president commissioner of Bank OCBC NISP in Indonesia. His primary responsibility is serving as chair of the bank’s supervisory board. In addition, he has served as the non-executive director at OCBC Bank Singapore since 2005.
 
Over the past three decades, Surjaudaja has been honored with awards such as Best CEO, Most Prominent Banker and Outstanding Entrepreneur. He also serves on the boards of nonprofit and educational organizations such as The British School Jakarta, Karya Salemba Empat Foundation, Parahiyangan Catholic University, Indonesia Overseas Alumni and served on the South East Asian Nations Council of INSEAD. Surjaudaja is a member of the Business Advisory Council for the Lam Family College of Business.
 
After graduating from SF State in 1985 with a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance, he earned his MBA from Golden Gate University. He lives with his family in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Stephen Wolf spent his career in commercial aviation, during which he worked for seven U.S. airlines and ran four. He began his career with American Airlines and rose to division vice president, followed by senior vice president of marketing at Pan Am; president of Continental Airlines; CEO of Republic Airlines, where he orchestrated its merger with Northwest Airlines; and chairman and CEO of Tiger International, the parent of the Flying Tiger cargo airline which he merged with Federal Express. Stephen was chairman and CEO of United Airlines for seven years and then served as chairman of U.S. Airways Group for seven years and chief executive officer for three of those seven years. He was also a senior advisor at Lazard Freres and was retained by the French government to restructure Air France. Since retiring, Stephen has held leadership and board positions at several companies, including chairman of R.R. Donnelley & Sons, board of director of the Fiat Chrysler Group and of Philip Morris International, managing partner of Alpilles, and chairman of Trilantic Capital Partners. A native of California, Stephen received a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University.