Board of Trustees - Officers

Nadine Durham, Chair

 Nadine Durham joined the Board of Trustees in July 2019.  She is currently the Director of Revenue Management IT services at Amerisource Bergen Corporation.  Nadine and her husband Gerard have been a part of the French International School community since 2008 and have two daughters who have attended the school from PK3 - 8th grade. Through business and personal travel around the world she and her husband have seen the importance and benefits of being exposed to other languages and cultures.  "With an incredible staff and community, the school has afforded our children the opportunity to receive their education in a diverse, multicultural environment.  This unique environment has prepared them to be great thinkers with a global understanding, fluent  in three languages".  Nadine has been a member of various committees through her career and in her community and looks forward to serving on the EFIP Board of Trustees.

Andrew A. Chirls, Vice Chair

Andrew A. Chirls joined the Board of Trustees in 2014, and is now one of its Vice Chairs. An attorney with Fineman Krekstein & Harris, P.C., in Philadelphia, Andrew is thrilled by his eldest daughter’s experience in kindergarten and first grade—the diligent approach to bilingual teaching, and the joy of discovery and creation that is part of every day for this child at her school. He believes that children benefit if they are citizens of the world, as they will understand and empathize with others and know how big their own experiences can be. His law practice and experience as a leader of the Philadelphia bar have brought him closer to the French community, as have his study of French and his travels in France. He is thrilled that he and his husband, Jim, are part of the community of families associated with the French International School, and he is delighted to be advancing the cause of an interesting and valuable education for the children of these families.  Andrew’s twin daughters are starting PK3 in 2020.

Cornel Fuerer - Vice Chair

Sylvie Satre, Treasurer

Sylvie Satre joined the Board of Trustees in July 2018, returning to the Board after a previous six-year term as Treasurer from 2001 to 2006. Sylvie graduated from l’École des Sciences Politiques de Paris and is now Senior Director, Regional Finance for Covanta, a company providing renewable and clean energy from waste. She also currently holds the position of Treasurer on the Board of the French Benevolent Society. Upon their arrival in Philadelphia in 1999, Sylvie and her husband Gérard decided to send their two daughters to the French International School (EFIP) to help them transition as smoothly as possible to a new country and environment. They quickly realized that EFIP was the perfect place for them to continue speaking their native language, become fluent in English as well as grow and evolve in a multicultural environment where everybody had a different background, religion and culture, thanks to the more than 45 different nationalities represented at the school. Their oldest daughter attended EFIP from PK4 to 8th grade and their youngest daughter from PK3 to 8th grade, graduating in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Sylvie believes that, throughout their combined 21 years at the school, EFIP taught her daughters not only academic excellence through rigorous coursework and high expectations but also the acceptance of diversity as a driving force capable of developing open-mindedness and a more positive world view. From their time at EFIP, they have become fluent in three languages and learned to embrace multiculturalism in order to become friends with people from all over the world throughout high school, college and beyond. Through her new position as Treasurer for the 2020-2021 school year, Sylvie is thrilled to be able to take part in shaping the school’s future.

Board of Trustees - Members

Sonia Adamson

Olivier Delabroy

Olivier Delabroy is VP Marketing and Business development for Airgas, an Air Liquide Company.
In his role, he develops new customer-centric offers strategies, driven by in-depth understanding
of Airgas key markets ecosystems and customer insights. He also supervises the operation of
the e-commerce channel (Airgas.com).
Olivier is an experienced executive, with 25 years of experience in the industrial gas industry, in
all aspects of managerial, operational and business domains. A PhD graduate of
CentraleSupélec (Paris, France), Olivier Delabroy joined Air Liquide in 1998 as a Research and
Development Engineer, and has held various senior leadership roles in the company both in
Europe and in the US.
He is passionate about driving customer-centric innovation from fundamentals to market
impact, managing value creation at each and every step by putting usage and adoption first,
before technologies. Since his assignment as Group Vice President of Research & Development
in 2010, Olivier has been a recognized practitioner of Open Innovation with global ecosystems
(incl. Start-ups, SMEs, Academics). Starting in 2016, Olivier has led for three years the Air
Liquide Digital Transformation. He set-up all the building blocks and platforms for the company
to operate digitally at scale, with a focus on cultural transformation.
Born in Connecticut, Olivier is a dual US and French citizen. He relocated from Paris, France to
the Philadelphia area in October 2021. He is a frequent speaker on topics related to Data and
Digital Transformation.

Barbara Freed

Barbara Freed has been a member of the Board of Trustees for more than two decades and is the former chair of the Committee on Trustees. She currently serves as chair of the Assessment Task Force. A resident of Philadelphia, Barbara lives in France for part of each year (Villefranche-sur-Mer). She is Professor Emerita of French Studies and Second Language Acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2010 she was inducted, as an Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Ambassador to the United States. Barbara claims her passion for bilingual/bicultural education is because, "It provides one with sensitivity to and enriched understanding as well as enhanced interactional skills with citizens of our global society. Research has shown that bilingual/bicultural individuals also have superior skills in the cognitive and creativity domains.” She adds, "The French International School offers the opportunity for students to acquire many of these linguistic and cultural skills. It is unique in that the student body is not ‘merely’ offered the opportunity to attain full bilingual proficiency in French and English, but its students are exposed on a daily basis to students from numerous other linguistic, ethnic and national backgrounds. " Barbara served as a Trustee for 25 years for the Institute for American Universities (Aix-en-Provence, France), where she was chair of the Academic Affairs Committee. For many years she served on the Boards of the Alliance Française de Philadelphie and the Mary Louise Curtis Branch of the Settlement Music School and the Friends Advisory Committee of Curtis Institute for Music. Currently she serves on the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Pepper Society Council and its Culinary Literacy Committee as well as on the Education Committee for PAFA and on the boards of the African Education Program and the Sociological Initiatives Foundation.

Nancy Gabel

Danielle Gross

Brian Johnston

Brian Johnston first joined the Board of Trustees in 2005. He and his wife Marina, a native of Italy, chose to send their two daughters to the French International School of Philadelphia to cultivate their multi-lingual and multi-cultural education at this extraordinary school. Brian and Marina co-founded Studio DPJ, a design and research firm located in Center City Philadelphia.  Brian has worked as a practicing architect for over 30 years and as an educator for over 15 years, teaching architectural design studios as well as history and theory seminars at various universities in Philadelphia. He currently teaches at Temple University, Tyler School of Art and Architecture.  He has also served as a board member for the Center City Residents’ Association, chairing its Zoning Committee, and has served as a co-chair for the Community Design Collaborative’s Design Review Committee.

Helen Koenig

Catherine Kosman

Catherine Kosman was a member of the French International School of Philadelphia’s Founding Committee ahead of the school’s opening in Bryn Mawr in September 1991. She then taught at the school for more than twenty years, first in Pre-K 3 and Pre-K 4 and later in Kindergarten. She also served as a Program Coordinator until she retired in June 2014. During the 2014-15 school year, Catherine returned to the school to oversee its reaccreditation work along with Kathy Kotchick. In 2015-16, she served as Interim Co-Head of School with Mrs. Kotchick. Now fully retired, Catherine is happy to serve on the school’s Board of Trustees. She also serves on the Board of the Alliance Française. Bilingualism has always been important to Catherine. It was natural for her to speak French to her children who are all bilingual. She also speaks Italian having lived in Genoa as a child and having studied it at school. Before coming to Pennsylvania, Catherine was a teacher at the French American School of New York in Larchmont, NY. She graduated from the American University in Paris and received her certification from the American Montessori Society in New York.

Peter Lorenzi

Annabelle Sallé 

Mathew Williams

Deborah R. Willig