Founded by Two-Time Grand Slam Champion
Vania King
We are a collective of industry experts, board members, tennis lovers, and change-makers with one big thing in common:
We are transforming lives through tennis.
Our Board of Directors
Vania King
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Vania is a former professional tennis player that reached career high rankings of #3 in the world in doubles and #50 in the world in singles. She is a two-time Grand Slam Doubles Champion, winning Wimbledon and the US Open. When she was an active player, she represented all players ranked 50+ as a Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Player Council representative, which guided decision making and strategy for the governing body of women's professional tennis.
Currently, Vania is a consultant for the WTA, WTA Foundation and the Women’s Tennis Benefit Association (WTBA). In addition to founding Serving Up Hope, she is the co-founder of the Asian American Pacific Islander Tennis Association, whose aim is to support the AAPI community in the tennis industry. In addition, she is a Director At Large, Elite Athlete, on the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Board of Directors.
Vania received an undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts Lowell and a masters degree in Nonprofit Management from Northeastern University. In her free time, Vania enjoys birdwatching and singing.
Edgar Kasasa
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Edgar is a civil engineer and business professional serving as managing director for a construction materials company in Uganda; Edcorp International. Edgar also advises on market entry into Uganda, raising and capital structure for business and operational management.
Prior to that, Edgar has worked on various fundraising campaigns for Australia for UNHCR and Save the Children Australia. He holds a civil engineering degree from the University of Sheffield. Edgar grew up playing tennis and is passionate about both expanding the reach of tennis in Africa and growing sustainable impactful enterprises on the continent.
Maegan Manasse
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Maegan is a five-time All-American tennis player that attended UC Berkeley, achieving the #1 ITA ranking in both singles and doubles. She reached the finals of the NCAA Women’s Doubles Championships and was part of the team that won the 2015 Masters BNP Paribas title in France, a tournament featuring the best college players in the world.
As a professional player, she holds career high ranking of 327 in singles and 175 in doubles, won one WTA doubles title and four ITF doubles titles. Maegan’s bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley is in Social Welfare. She has volunteered with the UC Berkeley Food Pantry and Bear Trax.
Albert Lee
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Albert is a Managing Director of Crescent Capital focusing on private credit. Prior to joining Crescent, Mr. Lee was a member of the investment banking departments at Lazard Fréres and Lehman Brothers. He received his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his BA from Columbia University. Albert grew up playing basketball and tennis and is passionate about trying to equal the playing field for those with less opportunity.
Katrina Campbell
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Campbell is the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer for the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian and refugee resettlement organization. She is a licensed attorney with degrees from Harvard Law School and Hampton University. She has consulted for many international organizations, served in ethics roles for the United Nations, and was an ethics and investigations expert for NAVEX Global, a leading provider of ethics hotlines. She began her career as a lawyer with the McGuire Woods law firm and Capital One.
Campbell has traveled throughout the United States and to dozens of other countries to serve clients and colleagues at all levels. Katrina serves as a volunteer with the USTA Eastern Board of Directors and (as of January 2025) on the USTA National Parks Committee. She is an active 3.0 league and club tennis player and proud mother to a 9th grader and kindergarten teacher.
Jonathan Klein
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Dr. Jonathan D. Klein is the Marron and Mary Elizabeth Kendrick Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Stanford University. Jon is a specialist in adolescent medicine and a health services researcher known for his leadership and expertise in adolescent preventive services, positive youth development, and for translation of research into clinical and public health practice and policy. He joined the faculty at Stanford in 2023, having spent 1992–2009 at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, 2009–17 as Associate Executive Director at the American Academy of Pediatrics, and 2017-23 at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Jon serves as President of the International Association for Adolescent Health, and is a member of the Executive Committee and Standing Committee of the International Pediatric Association, a global organization of 186 national and regional pediatric associations and global specialty societies. Jon and his wife, Dr. Susan Cohn, are avid amateur tennis players, dedicated foodies, and addicted lindy hop/swing dancers.
John Robertson
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John Robertson is a recently retired executive from State Farm Insurance Company. John was in numerous leadership positions over his 35 year career, including in Claims, Research, Technology, Consulting and Data and Analytics. He helped develop State Farm’s internal business consulting practice and their data and analytics functions as well as overseeing their auto and home research areas.
John has been involved with several charitable organizations in Central Illinois, including roles with the local YMCA, Easter Seals, his local church and other community organizations. He also served several years on the Board of Directors at Illinois Business Consulting, the student led business consulting organization at University of Illinois (the largest university student consulting organization in the United States).
John is currently president of the Board of Directors of Evergreen Racquet Club in Bloomington, Illinois. Evergreen recently celebrated its 50 year anniversary and was selected as a USTA National Facility of the Year in 2019. John is a lifelong tennis player. He was an Illinois High School doubles runner up and graduated from Indiana University with a BS in Finance. He has led three different USTA League Tennis to the national championship competition level and also was assistant coach at a local high school with several female and male state level participants.
John lives in Bloomington, Illinois with his wife Vickie and has two adult children.
Barbara Rueth
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Barb currently serves as the USTA-Chicago Junior Play Director. She is a PTR and USPTA certified teaching professional and a USTA National Coach Developer training coaches around the country.
A strong believer in youth development, Barb became the first woman to receive PTR’s Master of Junior Development tennis certification in 2013. She played D-1 tennis at Marquette University and is honored in their athletic hall of fame. After college, Barb worked as a consultant for Hewitt Associates for 22 years before returning to her tennis roots.
Niloufar Panahpour
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Nilou is a Los Angeles-based writer and criminal defense attorney. She attended Brown University and Stanford Law School and worked as a journalist at Rolling Stone Magazine before practicing law at Irell & Manella, the Federal Public Defender, and the California Court of Appeal.
An avid tennis fan and player, Niloufar learned to play tennis as a young child in Iran. She played for her high school team at Choate Rosemary Hall, and through tennis, she learned to play squash, which she played at Brown. She lives in LA with her husband, Chris, and two daughters.
Kathleen Ferrell
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Kathleen Ferrell is an investor/mentor and avid tennis fan (and recently retired partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLC). She left New York after 20+ years to return to South Carolina (after a total of 40 years away from home!) In her former professional life she advised corporate clients on federal income tax matters, including major U.S. domestic and cross-border transactions, as well as capital markets transactions, bankruptcy and workouts, and tax legislative and administrative matters.
In addition to serving on the board of SUH, Kathleen continues a number of mentoring relationships and is an investor in several women run enterprises.
Christina Mchale
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Christina Mchale reached career highs of #24 in singles and #35 in doubles. Off court, she is a member of the Player Council and one of the elite winners of the Harvard Business School’s Crossover to Business program. She has one sister, Lauren, who was also a competitive tennis player, who played at the University of North Carolina. Christina speaks Spanish and Mandarin Chinese and was a competitive swimmer when growing up.
Michael Morkin
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Mike Morkin is a recognized practitioner in international arbitration and litigation matters and the partner-in-charge of growth and expansion at Venable LLP, a law firm with 800 lawyers in 12 US offices. He has successfully arbitrated disputes in areas of sports, hospitality, transportation, reinsurance, life sciences, energy, shipping, post-acquisition, intellectual property, and numerous commercial arrangements. His extensive experience has resulted in arbitration awards valued in excess of $1 billion. Before Mike joined Venable, he spent over 30 years at the world’s most global law firm, BakerMcKenzie where he managed the firm’s home office to record headcount, brand recognition, revenue and profit. While at BakerMcKenzie, he also chaired the largest, busiest, and most diverse international arbitration practice in the world, personally handling arbitrations in Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and throughout the United States.
Mike received his AB from Augustana College in Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics where he was a two-time NCAA All-American, Academic All-American and NCAA Rookie of the Year in tennis. While earning his JD from the University of Illinois, Mike also served as the assistant men’s varsity tennis coach. Mike also serves on the Executive Committee and as Secretary of the Board of World Business Chicago. Mike is the father of 5 and lives in the Chicago area.
Meet the Team
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PROGRAM MANAGER
Meaghan Collier is a lifelong tennis player living in Amarillo, Texas. In her career, she’s worked in local broadcast and print journalism, marketing and communications, elementary education and community engagement; she has a robust background in serving non-profits in the Panhandle region and is passionate about increasing access to tennis through impactful organizations like Serving Up Hope. She is married to Cody, who is the head tennis coach at Amarillo High School and is mom to their pups Bradford and Baker.
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FINANCE MANAGER
Linda has 25+ years of experience in various accounting and finance roles, and has held leadership positions as Director of Finance and Accounting in Fortune 100 companies such as Fedex and Xerox. In 2015, Linda started her own consulting firm called T-Accounting Solutions (www.callmycfo.com). The firm helps small businesses with between $5M-$25M in revenue create strategic plans, budgets, financial reports and cash flow strategies and teaches best practices to existing on-site accounting staff. Linda is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Management Accountant, and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Finance from the University of Arizona as well as a Master of Science in Accounting degree from California State University, Sacramento.
Linda is an adjunct professor at the College of the Canyons in Valencia, CA and was drawn to Serving Up Hope for the emphasis and importance of teaching and education that the organization includes in all of its programs.
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CHICAGO REGION PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Leloba Seitshiro is a lifelong tennis player and broadcast journalist with more than 20 years of experience in storytelling, communications and community engagement. Throughout a career spanning reporting, writing, editing, producing and anchoring, Leloba has been passionate about connecting people through meaningful stories.
Today, Leloba combines that professional expertise with a deep love of tennis to help expand access to the sport for young players. The mission is especially personal, having grown up in Botswana as a national team player and proudly represented the country at the 1996 Federation Cup in Israel.
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LOS ANGELES PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Though a native Texan, Mandi has called Los Angeles home for the last 13 years and currently works as a TV Music Executive for Apple TV+, covering International Scripted Series. Prior to joining the studio side, Mandi was an independent music supervisor for projects such as Nashville, Zola, The Newsroom, and Mozart in the Jungle, to name a few.
Outside of work, she is a certified yoga instructor, plays the alto saxophone in a community band, and spends way too much time playing and captaining USTA league tennis. Mandi can also be found watching Sooner football with her family and finding every opportunity to travel, eat great food, and hang out with her two cats, Panda and Lucille, and fluffy dog, Savannah.
Mandi joined the Serving Up Hope team in early 2021, lending a hand with the launch of the Los Angeles-area programs.
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SAN FRANCISCO PROGRAM COORDINATOR
Laura is an active and passionate volunteer for several local non-profit organizations that focus on underserved children and families. She has held a variety of volunteer and leadership roles at her children’s schools and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the San Francisco Chapter of the National Charity League.
Born and raised in the suburbs of New York City, Laura graduated from Iona College with a BS in Accounting and later earned an MBA from Fordham University. She worked as an equity research analyst at CIBC World Markets Oppenheimer and a supervisory analyst for Robertson Stephens. Laura fell in love with San Francisco and has made the West Coast her home since 1999.
Laura started playing tennis with her girlfriends after witnessing the joy, camaraderie and life experiences it brought her children. She loves reading, cooking, playing cardio tennis and occasionally 9 holes of golf. Laura and her husband John live in Marin County and are proud parents of their three children, Jack, Anna and William.
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SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
Jack got involved in Serving Up Hope by helping his mother launch the San Francisco branch of the organization, and he saw the great work that Vania was doing and wanted to support the SUH mission in any way possible.
He grew up playing tournament tennis – leading his Cal Club team to win the Team Tennis U14 National Championship in 8th grade – but fell out of love with the sport in high school and pursued competitive golf instead. In middle school he was also a ball boy at the Tiburon Challenger, Bank of the West Classic, and the BNP Paribas Open with his sister.
Jack is currently a student at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California planning on a major in Environment, Economics, and Politics (EEP). At school he plays on the club tennis team and is a sports broadcaster for the CMS men’s and women’s basketball, softball, and baseball teams.
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PHOENIX REGION PROGRAM COORDINATOR
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VOLUNTEER
Anne got involved in Serving Up Hope two years ago when her daughter Caroline attended sessions hosted by Special Olympics and WTA Charities. Vania was on the session sharing about Serving Up Hope, and Anne & Caroline were inspired to collect equipment to donate. They are now involved in fundraising, events and program coordination. They helped set up multiple Chicago-based programs and are excited about continuing to grow Serving Up Hope around the world.
Tennis has always been a passion for Anne. She enjoys working with Vania, the USTA, WTA Charities and the tennis community to help grow the sport in underserved areas. Anne is involved in several organizations that support Caroline, who has autism and multiple medical issues, and people with disabilities.
Anne has worked as a human resources leader for 25 years. She has her MBA from Northwestern University (Kellogg) in marketing, nonprofit management and organizational behavior. Anne and Caroline started a business, Caroline’s Birdie Tweets (BirdieTweets.org), which sells birdseed wreaths and ornaments. Their mission is to provide an opportunity to build job related skills for Caroline and others with disabilities.
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DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING COORDINATOR
As a high school senior, Mia was the SUH Florida Outreach Coordinator. She coordinated donations of child-sized activewear and racquets, STEM games and educational material, and watches. She has also been helping with the program development and evaluation areas.
“I have been playing tennis since I was five. By training for tournaments, I developed a strong work ethic, discipline, and resilience. These qualities carried over to all aspects of my life. I am amazed at how quickly the children are progressing with their skills — both in tennis and in STEM!”
Mia also writes songs and has published them on streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube. She used the proceeds from the past year to purchase two laptops for Serving Up Hope. “I wanted to donate these laptops, because SUH’s STEM program is the first and only exposure to technology for all the children.”
Our Ambassadors
Industry Advisors
Dr. Elena Cañadas
Rosie Sterk
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Dr. Cańadas is a cognitive neuroscientist, interested in the design of interventions that are accessible to all the population, using technology as a way to improve cognitive, emotional and social skills of patients with ADHD, dementia, or mood disorders. She aims to help and support others in as many ways as possible to promote wellbeing (emotional and physical). Through sports, which she is passionate about, she hopes to make this goal more achievable by supporting local and international organizations with a focus on sport, psychology, and STEM education.
Dr. Cańadas is originally from Cordoba, Spain. She moved 8 years ago to the US, Boston, (MA), and currently living in the Sunshine State (FL). She started playing tennis at 8yo, and she is a certified tennis and snowboarding instructor.
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Originally from the Netherlands, Rosie was raised in Scotland, and educated in the United States. A senior at the University of Montana, Rosie is studying Finance and Economics and is an athlete athlete on the D1 Women’s Tennis team. As the College Pathway Advisor, Rosie supports Serving Up Hope’s developmental pathway to ensure that our programs are appropriate to support a student-athlete’s well being, success and goals.
Rosie met Vania at the WTA Future Stars event in 2019, a program established by the Women’s Tennis Association to support emerging female leaders in the tennis ecosystem and held alongside the WTA Finals. There, Rosie represented Great Britain and was unanimously voted the winner of the Li Na Inspiration Award. She was a member of the WTA’s Sustainability Committee and began volunteering with Serving Up Hope in 2020. Growing up, Rosie played many sports, including basketball, badminton, and tennis for Scotland), developing many skills and her appreciation of the impact sports can have.
Giuliana Rende
Timothy Kakuru
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Tim is an attorney who is co-founder and Director of Programs at BarefootLaw, the leading legal services organization in Uganda that is creating access to justice for the poor and underserved. He also co-founded SEMA, an organization that is working to empower citizen voices and promote accountability to the public. He has worked as an associate at Tuhimbise & Co. Advocates, served as a clerkship student with the Uganda Law Council, and contributed research and reporting on the law-making process in the Parliament of Uganda.
He received his LL.B. from Uganda Christian University and has a Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Centre, Kampala. His life goals are to continue contributing to the building of a kinder, fairer and happier world. He is a legal advisor for Serving Up Hope-Uganda and occasional ballboy at tennis training sessions.
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Giuliana is an ACD/Senior Copywriter and ex-professional athlete with extensive experience conceptualizing, writing & editing integrated advertising campaigns, online content & marketing communications. She currently is a Lead Copywriter for HH Global for Google and is excited to support Serving Up Hope’s mission as she knows the impact that sports can have on the lives of young people.