Board Members

Board Member

• Principal, Spirit Living Group

Ali's career in senior housing and care started as a caregiver for a board and care home while he was going through law school. He later worked as an attorney representing senior housing developers and operators. He co-founded AgeSong, Inc., an assisted living management company before joining his brother to launch Spirit Living Group, a senior housing development and asset management company based in Marin County. Ali graduated from UC Berkeley and received his JD from Santa Clara University School of Law where he has been a guest lecturer. Ali’s interests include modern architecture inspired by Mies van der Rohe, Vipassana meditation, following Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock and running half-marathons, with a best time of 1:42.

Board Member

• CEO/Owner of M2, Inc.
• Senior Fellow, Harvard University

Chip served as a volunteer caregiver with Zen Hospice Project from April 2016 until June 2018. He is the founder of M2 Inc (boutique investment advisory firm) & Blue Diamond Capital (trading company), he is a frontier markets investor profiled in a WSJ article, CEO Vivid Image Technology, and Senior Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Board Secretary

• Former Co-Abbot, San Francisco Zen Center

Paul Haller has been engaged in Buddhist practice for 30 years, initially as a Theravada monk in Thailand and was then ordained as a priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1980, where he recently became the new Co-Abbot. He leads the outreach program at the Zen Center and has extensive experience integrating Buddhist practice with hospice, jail, and peace work.

Board President

• Founder and Managing Director, Fundamental Investment Advisors

Chris Panos has studied Tibetan Buddhism, Korean Zen, and American Japanese Zen since 1975. Chris received a BA from Indiana University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is a Zen Teacher in the Zen Peacemakers Sangha and President of Zen Peacemakers.

Board Treasurer

• Managing Director, Vrolyk Capital Partners

Vrolyk Capital Partners (“VCP”) is a private investment banking firm based in San Francisco that provides merger and acquisition and private financing advisory services. Prior to founding VCP in 2012, Anne was with Viant Group, which combined in 2010 with Vrolyk & Company, the firm she founded and ran for over 20 years. Prior to Vrolyk & Company, she was with the merger department of Alex Brown & Sons in San Francisco and the merger department of Goldman Sachs in New York. Anne received her MBA from the Columbia Graduate School of Business and her BA in Bacteriology from the University of California, Los Angeles, CA.

Board Member

• Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Anne Kinderman is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and provides clinical care as an attending physician in the UCSF Division of Palliative Medicine. Between 2009 and 2021, she served as the Director of the Supportive & Palliative Care Service at San Francisco General Hospital, a role in which she helped to develop inpatient and outpatient palliative care services and led numerous quality improvement and educational initiatives. Dr. Kinderman came to be familiar with the work of Zen Hospice and Zen Caregiving through the Zen Guest House and the extensive volunteer program serving the Guest House and Laguna Honda Hospital’s hospice unit. She also developed great respect for the organization through the collaborative development of CAREgivers, initially piloted at Zuckerberg San Francisco General.