Please meet our next Head of School, Thomas R. Gibian. Tom will assume leadership of Sandy Spring Friends School for the 2010-2011 academic year.

Tom comes to Sandy Spring Friends School after 10 years as chief executive officer, managing director, and founding partner of Emerging Capital Partners (ECP). ECP is the largest fund manager working across the African continent with offices in Johannesburg, Tunis, Casablanca, Abidjan, Lagos and Douala as well as Washington DC. Tom has managed the daily operations of the firm and overseen its rapid growth since its beginning in 2000. Prior to returning to the Washington area, Tom was Executive Director in the Asia-Pacific Region of Goldman Sachs (Asia) Limited from 1992-1995. Tom joined Goldman Sachs in 1987 as vice president. Prior to 1987 he was with Solomon Brothers beginning in 1983. Throughout his career, Tom has focused on staying true to his Quaker values and using them in the business world. Having served on both the Sandy Spring Friends School and the Sidwell School Boards, he has dedicated his volunteer efforts to the governance of Quaker schools.

Tom has a keen appreciation for the enormous importance of practicing and being known as a person of high personal and professional integrity. Through his work in Africa and Asia, Tom has learned how to advance a collective venture in many dimensions at once by building strong teams where trust and commitment are high, expanding institutional relationships through outreach and imagination, communicating lavishly with stakeholders, including current and prospective clients while handling vital responsibilities from budgeting to supervision, to crisis management, and inspiring outstanding results by modeling visionary leadership that does not call attention to itself.

Tom grew up in Sandy Spring, MD, and is a member of Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting where many of the School's faculty, staff, students and parents have been part of the community. He graduated from Sherwood High School, received a bachelor's degree with honors from the College of Wooster in Ohio, and received an MBA in finance from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

Tom's college senior Independent Study at College of Wooster was entitled "Dissent and Experimentation in American Schools, 1900-1960." He taught at Wooster High School and received a secondary school teaching certificate. After college he was a community organizer and, later, administrator in a local anti-poverty agency.

Tom has served on the boards of Celtel International (DRC), Orascom Telecom Algeria, Intercontinental Bank (Nigeria), Ashanti Goldfields (Ghana), interWAVE Communications, BLP Telecom, Spice Telecom (India), Sithe Asia, and the Corporate Council on Africa. He is also presently a Trustee of the Center for Global Development.

Tom has shared with the community, "I do not know of anything more important that I can do over the next ten or so years than to draft a vision of what the School can become and to lead it to reach its full potential... to offer a balanced world-class educational program to a diverse and energetic group of youngsters while, perhaps most importantly, to hold tight to the unmatchable ethos that has characterized the School ever since Brooke Moore's vision led to its founding in 1961."

Tom is married to Tina Grady, a graduate of Sandy Spring Friends School. They have a son and a daughter, both of whom have attended Quaker schools.

Welcome, Tom!