Board of Directors

Robert Baldino

Robert is French and works as a Finance Director at Microsoft. He has a long experience of living and working in France and the USA. After graduating in Finance from a French business school he obtained his MBA in International Business in New York. He and his family moved to the Pacific Northwest seven years ago and are happily settled here. He enjoys working in an international environment, is well connected with Seattle’s French community and has travelled extensively throughout the USA. He has had the pleasure of attending events organized by the Alliance Française and this has led him to want to become more directly involved in supporting our organization, leveraging his experience, networks and belief in the benefits of multi-cultural activity.

Christine Denis

Christine Denis was born and raised in Québec, Canada.  She moved to the United States in her mid -teens where she continued her education.  She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration specializing in Finance with 10 years of investment management experience.  Christine is a member of the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association.  Bilingual, professional, and energetic, la Québecoise embodies the mission statement of l'Alliance Française and looks forward to collaboratively lead l'Alliance in its function to promote and embrace la francophonie!

Margaret Ganong

Margaret was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, and returned to the Northwest three years ago after spending more than two decades living abroad. During that period, she spent twenty years in France, where her introduction to the French language came through Alliance française on boulevard Raspail in Paris. While in France, she taught English at the French business school HEC (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales), at Lycée Henri IV (classes préparatoires), and as an independent instructor working with French corporations and executives. She then worked for several years at the corporate headquarters of the global insurance and asset management giant AXA before establishing her own financial and corporate translation business in 1998. In 2006, she transferred her business to Seattle. She is passionate about French culture and would like to contribute to its rayonnement in the Pacific Northwest by finding ways to appeal to the growing francophone community here.

Barbara Nahouraii

Barbara is an American citizen  and a true Francophile. She is a Lawyer/Mediator who specializes in HR and workplace issues. She has been an Alliance member for several years, a student and a volunteer. She has attended many events organized by the Alliance,
including the recent Picasso event at SAM. Barbara did her junior semester in Paris, where she studied French cinema and graduated in Film Studies from Yale University. She continues to follow contemporary French visual artists. She obtained her JD from Harvard Law School. As a committed Francophile Barbara believes she has many useful skills to contribute to the Alliance.

Florent Maillet

Florent Maillet is a travel and hospitality industry entrepreneur. He currently operates the specialty travel company Chocolatine that he founded in 2002. Florent has experience as an Account Executive for the Montepellier (France) office of RSCG, one of France's largest international advertising agencies. A French native who has been an active leader in Seattle's French community for the past 13 years, Florent earned B.A. degrees in Sociology and Business: International Marketing from the University of Tours in Tours, France.

Marie-Pierre Salem

Marie-Pierre is a French-speaking Lebanese. She was awarded her French baccalaureate from Marseilles though she studied in a francophone lazarist high school (Collège Saint Joseph-Antoura) in Lebanon. She then earned her Master’s degree in Business Computing from a French Jesuit University (USJ – Université Saint Joseph). She is a software engineer with 4 + years experience in implementing windows and web based applications for business use. In Lebanon, she helped her mother (who is a French teacher) to start a local non-profit organization to help students who struggle in their homework and prepare them for government exams. She was an active member responsible for implementing the software to facilitate paper work, check accounting procedures as well as tutor students.

Eric Thuau

Eric is French and is the Head of School at the French American School of Puget Sound; he and his family arrived in the Puget Sound Area in July 2010. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Education from Institut Universitaire de Formation des maîtres ( IUFM) de Metz, France. He has travelled widely in his career, successfully leading international schools in Cape Verde, West Africa, in Turkey, and in Austin, Texas. His roles have given him both “hands-on” and broad management experience, and he is familiar with different models of education. He also wrote, produced and filmed different short films with students and the RTP-AFRICA television station. Eric is dedicated to promoting the French language and francophone culture, believes in the importance of cultural diversity, and would be delighted to assist the Alliance Française in further developing its services and reach, building on his broad international experience of education.

Charles Tompkins

Chuck Tompkins grew up in Waitsfield, Vermont and attended the University of Vermont (1987-1991). After spending his junior year of college at the Centre d’Etudes Francaises in Avignon, France, Chuck finished school and then lived and worked in Paris for a year and a half in the hotel and restaurant business, most notably at the famous le Fouquet’s on the Champs-Elysees.  He also worked on the construction of EuroDisney, from June 1991 to April 1992, and then moved on to Spain, where he studied Spanish for a year at Madrid's Universidad Complutense.These experiences were soon put to professional use in the US. Chuck taught both French and Spanish at The Greenwich Country Day School in Greenwich, Connecticut for four years (1994-1998). In 1998, he was awarded an MA in Spanish from Middlebury College. When he is not traveling in France, where he likes to take long bicycle trips and visit the Alps, Chuck is a self-employed certified financial planner in Seattle.  

Karl Woelfer

Karl Woelfer is a software architect and engineer specializing in real-time safety critical embedded applications ranging from aerospace and defense to medical devices.  He is also a small business owner, a board member of the University District Community Council, and has worked as a volunteer for the Northwest Farmers Market Alliance for the last 13 years.  Karl has been an active member of the Seattle Alliançe Française since 1997 during which time he has worked as a volunteer at the Bastille Day celebrations and most recently for the Ciné Club.  Karl received the Diplome d’études en langue française (DELF-B2) diploma in 2007, and joined the Board of Directors of Alliance Française in 2010.

Linda Youngs

Linda Youngs is a real estate attorney at Hanson Baker in Bellevue. She has a long standing interest in France and French culture. She majored in French at Wellesley College and taught French at the university and high school levels before becoming a lawyer. She has four grandaughters, all of whom are French citizens.