Alumni Awards
Each year, Friends School is proud to honor alumni who have distinguished themselves with outstanding professional and personal achievements and those who have loyally dedicated their time and service to the School.
Reminder: Graduates are nominated in years in which they are celebrating a Reunion. This year we will be celebrating reunion classes that end in 0 and 5.
Distinguished Alumni Award
This award was established to recognize and honor those Friends School graduates whose professional or volunteer achievements have brought distinction within a particular field or vocational endeavor, locally or on a national level.
Outstanding Alumni Service Award
This award was established to honor a Friends School alumna or alumnus who has generously and loyally donated time and energy to enrich Friends and its future.
Honorary Alumni Award
This award was established to honor a Friends School community member who exemplifies the Quaker philosophy and spirit, and who gives of himself or herself to further the growth of Friends School and its community.
2025 Alumni Award Recipients
2025 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients
Amy is the CEO, Co-Founder and Board Member of Music Sustainability Alliance (MSA), a company that empowers the music industry to tackle the climate crisis. Amy has created a way to fuse her expertise in the music touring industry with her passion and background for sustainability. At MSA, she leads a team of event and sustainability professionals to move the music industry towards more sustainable outcomes. Prior to MSA, Amy was a trailblazer in the live music world for more than three decades, including as SVP of Marketing for Concerts West/AEG Presents, where she worked with the Rolling Stones, Celine Dion, Paul McCartney, Prince and others. According to renowned music journalist Larry LeBlanc, “Her touch is legendary, and she has unquestionably changed the way music events and tours are being marketed.” In 2021, to reinforce her commitment to climate action, Amy achieved a sustainability certificate from Presidio Graduate School.
Building on the foundation of his education at Friends, Jahan is a social justice lawyer, running the San Francisco office of national plaintiffs’ law firm Outten & Golden. There, he represents workers in class actions to challenge companies’ exploitative employment practices, including systemic discrimination and harassment, wage theft, and corporate speech restriction. During his career, he has won a jury trial for a nationwide class of IT workers to recover unpaid wages, an en banc appeal in the Ninth Circuit, settlements protecting Google, Uber, and Activision workers from gender and race discrimination, and more. Jahan is active in the legal community, having served on various boards, such as the ACLU of Northern California, Legal Aid at Work, Public Advocates, Alliance for Justice, the People’s Parity Project, and the American Constitution Society. Before working as a lawyer, Jahan was a teacher in England and Brooklyn and a management consultant in New York City.
2025 Outstanding Alumni Service Award Recipient
Chris is a proud alum, parent of alum, dedicated volunteer, and an invaluable champion of Friends School. Following in the footsteps of his brother Geoff Feiss ’72, Chris joined Friends School in 4th Grade and has remained actively engaged ever since. As a member of the Class of 1980, Chris has been a leader for class reunions and alumni gatherings nationwide, nurturing relationships throughout the alumni community. As a parent, he and spouse Hadley were regular fixtures on campus during their child Carter's ’18 time, attending concerts and performances, and helping with important admissions and alumni activities. Chris has had the most impact on Friends, however, through his dedicated service to the Board of Trustees from 2017-2024. During his 7 year tenure, he garnered philanthropic support for the School as clerk of the Development Committee from 2018 to 2021, paving the way for future capital and comprehensive campaigns and championing the most recent renovation of the Lower School complex. He led the Board's recruitment and governance activities as the clerk of the Committee on Trustees from 2021 to 2024. He devoted time and energy to the Executive Committee in his role as Board Secretary for 3 years, and provided financial counsel on the Finance and Investment committees during his entire tenure. On top of all of this, for the past five years, he has also contributed his insights and support as a founding member of the Head’s Advisory Council, a group that serves as a sounding board and advisory cabinet to the Head of School. To be sure, many from the Class of 1980 have contributed strongly to Friends School's success, but Chris Feiss's passion, generosity of spirit, devotion of time and talent, and steadfast leadership have truly set him above and apart.
** Special Honorable Mention for members of the Class of 1980: The Class of 1980 is a particularly supportive and altruistic alumni class. During the Awards Ceremony, special remarks will be made in appreciation for all that this class has contributed through volunteerism to Friends School.
2025 Honorary Alumni Award
Nearly every Friends School graduate will share how deeply their teachers influenced them, and Lisa Countess is one of those exceptional educators whose impact spans generations. Joining the school in 1984, Lisa dedicated herself to the Foreign Language Department and was a mentor to students and colleagues alike. As former student and colleague Jordan Wright ’10 poignantly expressed, “In reality, there are insufficient words to really describe her contributions to Friends and how much she means to this community…She truly is part of the history of the school with her seeing many different principals, heads of school, colleagues, strategic plans, and capital campaigns.” Throughout her 40 years, Lisa was instrumental in the Black Student Union, the Hiram Holton II Scholarship, Sister to Sister Mentoring, Squashwise, and the Convocation Committee. She championed language study-abroad trips, supported the Performing Arts Department, and organized Upper School Collection among other things. Lisa’s legacy endures at Friends, and we are proud to recognize her with the Honorary Alumni Award.