New program director comes from a tech background
Chris Thompson, the Knight Foundation’s new program director in San Jose, says one of his strengths is being able to see around the corner, like a race car driver who knows when to step on the gas or hit the brakes.
“I’ve always been on the planning edge of big change and driving through that change,” said Thompson, a Silicon Valley veteran who was vice president of product marketing at Plantronics and also worked at Cisco, Network Associates and Nortel. He succeeds Danny Harris, who in his four years as the Knight Foundation point person in Silicon Valley became an instant force in the city’s nonprofit community. Harris departed from the job in October to return to New York City, and Thompson knows there will be comparisons as he gets settled into the role.
“I don’t come from the nonprofit world. I come from the tech world,” Thompson said. “I don’t know how people are going to receive that.”
Thompson, 54, grew up in Toronto and returns to Canada regularly. The growing tech industry brought him to San Diego in 1989, and he was hired to work in San Jose a few years later by voicemail pioneer VMX. He instantly liked the city and bought a house in the Hyde Park neighborhood of North San Jose.
Today, he and his partner, Yves Zsutty, split time between a home in Ben Lomond
and a condo in downtown San Jose. Thompson sees San Jose’s diversity as a major asset and believes downtown is on a positive trajectory, despite the “ebbs and flows” of the past.
“I like the fact that I can go somewhere and say that I’m from San Jose or Silicon Valley and it’s a frame of reference that people get right away,” said Thompson, who is soft-spoken but, at 6-foot-4, can command a stage when he needs to. “I like the vibe of the city. It’s got a great foundation.”
Thompson said part of his career has consistently involved listening to people who fundamentally disagree with him and finding a way forward. Part of his operating strategy, he said, has been to clarify a vision and get other people on board — especially if they start out on the opposite side.
“What we need to be able to do is identify people that can influence change and invest in them,” he said. “People that have a vision and can defend the vision and sit down at a table with people that disagree with their vision and find some way to work through it.”
For his first months on the job, he plans to be in more of a listening mode than engaging in active outreach, but he said the Knight Foundation’s transformative role in the cities it works with will not change. Over the past decade, Knight has invested more than $25 million in San Jose initiatives, including the popular open streets event Viva CalleSJ, the Local Color artists collective, pop-up retail incu-
bator Moment at San Pedro Square, and the Mexican Heritage Plaza School of Arts and Culture’s MayFeria.
“What attracted me to the role is that the Knight brand comes with gravitas, and transformational change needs gravitas,” Thompson said. While it’s not easy for individuals to create change on their own, he said, foundations like Knight are in a better position. “What I hope to be able to do is contribute to that opinion and that voice and create a compelling reason for people to want to work with us,” he said.
CLIMBING HIGH IN IMAX >> If you’ve ever wanted the experience of freeclimbing Yosemite’s El Capitan without leaving the ground, then you might want to catch “Free Solo” at the Tech Museum of Innovation during its limited run this week. The documentary, which is expected to receive an Oscar nomination, follows Alex Honnold as he attempts the free solo climb of the 3,000-foottall landmark without ropes or safety gear.
The show runs only through Thursday, and tickets are available at www.thetech.org. BEYOND THE GALLERIES >> Two downtown San Jose art institutions are hosting events this afternoon that are far from the usual gallery talk.
The San Jose Museum of Art’s Creative Minds series showcases Tender Table with She Who Has No Master(s) at 2 p.m. Tender Table is a platform for women and gender-nonconforming people of color to share stories about food and its connections to identity, memory and community.
The conversation will be led by She Who Has No Master(s), a collective of writers of the Vietnamese diaspora. Tickets are $12 ($6 for members) and are available at www.sjmusart.org.
The Institute of Contemporary Art has its Art + Science Social Hour at 3 p.m., with kombucha beer tasting, conversations with artists and drop-in activities for all ages that celebrate the ways art and science work together.
Two of the gallery’s winter exhibitions explore that topic: Tracey Adams and Virginia Folkestead’s “Primordial Soup,” which is an immersive installation inspired by marine microbiology, and “tender exchanges,” Lorrie Fredette’s installation featuring sculptural representations of neural networks and tree roots.