ViKiwi is a management consulting firm that works with both private and public sector clients to exploit technology to improve the effectiveness of human work.
Gee Kin Chou is the President and co-founder of ViKiwi. Gee Kin brings a blend of business executive skills, an engineer’s sense of practicality and a solid grasp of the challenges facing urban school districts and the complexity of their environment, especially within the context of No Child Left Behind. Since starting ViKiwi in 2003, Gee Kin has brought project management, strategic planning, accountability and technology expertise to more than a dozen large school districts across the US, working with district staff at every level on reform projects sponsored by the Stupski Foundation intended to transform compliance driven bureaucracies into high performing, data-driven organizations that can raise the performance of every student. He gained district executive experience as Interim Executive Officer of Technology for Oakland USD from August 2007 to April 2008, and as Interim Chief Technology Officer of Pasadena USD from April 2009 to August 2009. Through a mix of successes and disappointments, he understands the factors that are critical to the success of reform initiatives.
Prior to starting ViKiwi, Gee Kin was Senior Vice-president of Brokerage Operations at Charles Schwab & Co. where he implemented a mix of technology and process redesign to transform a compliance driven, transaction-oriented organization into teams of knowledge workers that could enhance customer service and reduce costs. An immigrant from New Zealand, Gee Kin started his US career at Raychem Corporation where he developed new businesses for innovative technologies. Gee Kin was a professional structural engineer in New Zealand and Hong Kong prior to coming to the US.
Gee Kin holds a Bachelors degree with 1st class honors in Civil Engineering from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and an MBA from Harvard, and pursued graduate studies in Hydraulics at Qinghua University in Beijing. Gee Kin has served on the boards of several educational institutions, including The Urban School of San Francisco, and San Francisco School Volunteers. He currently mentors a first-year principal through the complexities of managing a large, diverse, San Francisco middle school.
Eric Hestenes is co-founder and Vice-president of Technology of ViKiwi, and is the architect of Schoolmeasures. Working on reform projects sponsored by the Stupski Foundation, Eric has brought more than 20 years’ experience in project management, organizational development and technology to nearly a dozen school districts across the US. While managing the technology departments in West Contra Costa USD, Gilroy USD, and Pasadena USD, Eric experienced the challenges facing district executives, especially the difficulties implementing reform projects against the constant pull of daily responsibilities. Through his immersion in school district operations, Eric developed a good understanding of the limitations of their environments, and designed Schoolmeasures to improve the outcomes of strategic projects within those limitations. Drawing upon his experiences managing ViKiwi’s internal projects, and his industry experience prior to starting ViKiwi, Eric has mentored individual district executives in project management best practices.
Eric served as Chief Technology Officer for the New York Law School Institute for Information Law & Policy, implementing innovative technologies to leverage the power of communities, such as www.peertopatent.org and www.post-issue.org. He has also served as an expert consultant on Internet technology strategy for the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President and the United States Treasury Department.
Prior to ViKiwi, he was Vice President of Brokerage Operations and Vice President of Technology at Charles Schwab & Co., where he teamed with Gee Kin to implement major technology initiatives to reduce costs and improve customer service, such as an on-line library where brokers could quickly find answers to customer questions.
Eric studied Cognitive Science, including Cognitive Psychology and Computer Science, at the University of California at San Diego.
