The Boarding School

The mission of the organization is to recruit and train young people to serve on boards of organizations that affect their lives.

WHAT IS THE BOARDING SCHOOL?

The Boarding School will be a 501(c)3 organization with the mission of recruiting and training young people to serve on boards of organizations that affect their lives. As part of its mission, TBS will work with companies and organizations whose actions directly impact young people to better incorporate a youthful perspective in their governance and decision-making processes across various domains, including academia, sports, business, entertainment, and government.

We believe that equipping young people to make a difference in these areas will help both our partner organizations, who will benefit from a more diverse and inclusive perspective, and our youth representatives, who will develop boardroom leadership skills early on in their life. The Boarding School’s first formal effort will be to advocate for a Young Alumni Overseer system at Harvard University similar to the one currently in place at Princeton.

Programs

Awareness

The Boarding School partners with companies and organizations that already incorporate young voices into their decision making bodies to raise awareness about the benefits of having more diverse perspectives represented in the boardroom. At the same time, we identify organizations that are good candidates to add younger voices into their boards and work with them to find the best way to incorporate them into their governance structures.

Training/Education

The Boarding School identifies and recruits young people who are strong candidates to positively contribute to the decision making processes of organizations that affect their lives and equips them with the skills and information to communicate their perspectives effectively. That includes providing them with information that is specific and relevant to the organizations that our fellows are hoping to join and general education about corporate governance and the function of boards of directors and similar bodies, as well as training in procedural functions, such as Robert’s Rules of Order. We also want our fellows to develop leadership skills that will serve them inside and beyond the boardroom, including public speaking, persuasive argumentation, and coalition building. Finally, creating a cohort of fellows in similar situations will provide each individual fellow with a network to provide support and feedback.

Team

Nathán Goldberg
Nathán GoldbergPresident/Director
Nathán Goldberg was born and raised in Mexico City and attended high school in Austin, Texas. He was an undergraduate student at Harvard University, where he was captain of the varsity men’s soccer team and earned the first-ever Joint A.B. in Philosophy and Statistics in the school’s history. Since receiving his American citizenship in January 2018, Nathán has been involved in progressive politics by recruiting and training students in STEM fields to serve as volunteer data directors for down-ballot campaigns that can’t afford traditional analytics services. He co-founded The Boarding School because he believes that younger generations tend to be on the right side of history.
Danielle Strasburger
Danielle StrasburgerCampaign Manager/Director
Danielle Strasburger believes strongly in the power and importance of young people’s voices. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, she attended Harvard University, graduating in 2018 with a degree in Social Studies. After college, Danielle moved to Cusco, Peru, where she served as a Project Manager for GirlSportWorks, an NGO that teaches life skills to young girls through sports. Now based in Chicago, Danielle is head of operations at Bluebonnet Data, where she oversees the recruitment, training, and placement of young people to serve as volunteer data directors for down-ballot progressive campaigns. The mission of The Boarding School is near and dear to her heart, and she’s excited to see more young people with positions on boards.
Priten Shah
Priten ShahSecretary/Director
Priten H. Shah is a serial entrepreneur whose projects aim to change power dynamics in various industries and fields. He is a Founding Partner at DryErase Ventures, a venture capital fund that runs fellowships for founders ignored by traditional investors. Through that, he has also co-founded various projects to make entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education more accessible worldwide. He is also the co-founder and CEO of United 4 Social Change, a non-profit organization that aims to develop every member of a democratic society into a civic leader. U4SC runs workshops, develops courses, and provides resources for nonprofits, teachers, and students. He currently lives in New York City after graduating with a degree in philosophy from Harvard University.
Azza Cohen
Azza CohenDirector
Azza Cohen is a documentary filmmaker and historian dedicated to storytelling in the public service. Currently at CreativeChaos vmg, she is co-directing her first feature film, The Last Statesman, a documentary on conflict negotiators in Northern Ireland, South Africa, Colombia, Israel and Palestine. She is also currently story producing The Great Divide, a feature documentary on the debate over gun laws in the United States. Cohen’s first film, Refugee, Refugee, a day in the life of a Rwandan refugee in New Jersey, was used as part of the film subject’s successful application for asylum status. This experience highlighted how films can catalyze change on personal and political levels. She earned a B.A. from Princeton University in 2016, where she was awarded the Priscilla Glickman and Spirit of Princeton awards for her contributions to service on campus. Cohen currently serves on the Princeton University Board of Trustees. After Princeton, she earned an M.A. in colonial history in 2017 from the National University of Ireland, Galway.
Achille Tenkiang
Achille TenkiangDirector
Achille Tenkiang is a Cameroonian-American artist and advocate passionate about bridging the gaps between arts, advocacy, activism, and policy. He is an international legal assistant at White and Case LLP in Paris, France. Prior to joining White & Case LLP, he received the Henry Richardson Labouisse ’26 Prize to pursue international civic engagement efforts. Tenkiang traveled to Nairobi, Kenya and Cape Town, South Africa to explore the question of cultural production among urban refugees. He is a founding member of BLOC, an online professional network for historically disadvantaged collegians of color, and a founder of the Roots Scholars Program, which promotes education access in Cameroon. Tenkiang graduated from Princeton in 2017, where he was the first student in University to pursue a concentration in African Studies. He serves as a Member of Princeton University’s Board of Trustees.

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