U.S. Embassy Representative

Minister Counselor for Management Affairs

Dave Simons is a newcomer to Moscow, having arrived in August 2020 on the OPMED flight.  Yes.  That OPMED flight.  A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Dave has also been posted to Spain, Iraq, Israel, Germany, Belgium, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Greece, and Washington DC.  He previously served on the school board of the American International School of Israel.  Dave graduated from the University of Utah with bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Political Science.  He has master’s degrees from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and the National War College. He is married to Mandy Simons and they have three adult children, who all graduated from international schools.

Canadian Embassy Representative

Minister-Counselor / Deputy Head of Mission, Canadian Embassy
Board Treasurer 

Community-At-Large Representative

President, Credit Europe Bank (Russia) Ltd.

Mr. Haluk Aydinoglu came to Russia in 2004 and immediately joined Credit Europe Bank (Russia) Ltd as Vice-President responsible for retail banking. In 2010 he was appointed to the role of President at Credit Europe Bank (Russia) Ltd. 

Before joining Credit Europe Bank, Mr. Aydinoglu  worked at McKinsey for more than 4 years in many countries, including the US, Turkey, Greece, South Africa, and most of the Middle East, mainly in consumer finance and sales force management projects. While at McKinsey, he was an active member of the Financial Institutions Group.

Prior to McKinsey, he was a product manager at Retek, a startup B2B software company currently acquired by Oracle in Atlanta, US.

Dr. Aydinoglu holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering and an Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, and BS in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Bosphorus University, Turkey. 

Mr. Aydinoglu  is married with two daughters both attending AAS.

U.S. Embassy Representative

Jenny Palmer joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 2009.  Her overseas postings include Ecuador, Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel.  Jenny has managed a range of international education programs as a Public Diplomacy Officer.  She holds a Bachelor’s in International Politics from Georgetown University.  Jenny is married to a fellow foreign service officer, Bo Palmer. They have three young children who will attend AAS in the coming years.

Community-At-Large Representative

SVP General Manager, COO PepsiCo Russia Food and Beverages

Otakar works for PepsiCo for more than 22 years. For the last 10 years he worked in several General Management positions in East Europe/Sub-Sahara region and in Russia. He arrived to Russia with his wife Michaela and their two sons in 2007, following assignments in Miami, Frankfurt and Budapest. Both sons are still attending AAS. Outside of work, Otakar is a member of the board of several global technological start-ups and enjoys practicing sports, especially golf, cycling, squash and alpine skiing.

U.S. Embassy Alternate Representative

Jason Sheets arrived in Moscow in August 2021 and serves at the Deputy Management Counselor at the U.S. Embassy. Prior to Moscow, he served as the Management Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou, China from 2017-2020. During that time he was also the Vice Chair of school board at the American International School in Guangzhou. Jason joined the U.S. Department of State in 2005 and has also served in Beijing, Vladivostok, and London. Jason and his wife, Akiko, have three daughters attending AAS from this year. One in high school, middle school, and elementary school each. He enjoys playing tennis and taking long walks on the beach with his toy poodle named Tacos.

AAS Parent Teacher Organization Chair

Celia Schweizer and her husband, Nick, and their two elementary-age daughters, Olivia and Agnes, moved to Moscow in August 2020. Originally from the U.S., the family spent two years in Heidelberg, Germany prior to moving to Moscow.

Celia earned a BA in Public Policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a MBA from The George Washington University. She spent nearly a decade working in corporate philanthropy for a Fortune 200 company, where she managed multimillion dollar philanthropic programs and coordinated the participation of thousands of employee volunteers in service of national non-profit partners. In 2012, she took a break from full-time work to start a family, and, a short time later, to embrace life as an expat. In recent years, Celia has completed freelance research and writing projects for colleagues in academia, and worked part-time in graduate program admissions at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School. For the last two years, Celia’s main focus has been her volunteer work with the PTO leadership of her children’s international schools. Celia served as the Secretary of the AAS PTO Executive Committee in 2020-2021, and was elected President for the 2021-2022 school year.

Community At-Large Representative
Business Intelligence consultant, Dell LLC Russia

Lubica has arrived in Moscow April 2019, assigned as Business Intelligence consultant at American IT company DELL. Within over eight years at DELL she has supported several international transformation projects, defining target operating models in the field of finance, sales, strategy and planning, with a recent special focus on Go-To-Market strategies in different regions world-wide.

With a diverse background and passion for cultural learning she is an active mentor for young talents and member of “Women-in-Action” organization at DELL. Before joining Dell, Lubica spent 12 years different roles in financial management, up to CFO level, at Trenkwalder, Allianz, KBC or KPMG. She has graduated from Financial Management at University of Economics in Bratislava.

Proud mom of two daughters, Tereza, student of AAS and Greta joining AAS next school year. Married to Patrik Ziman, CFO of pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim, also assigned to Moscow currently.
Whole family loves Moscow, especially in winter-time, enjoys ice-skating, skiing, travelling, multi-cultural life and learning new languages.