Building A Better City

Jean Fraser

CEO
The Presidio Trust

Jean S. FraserJean S. Fraser has dedicated her career to fostering healthy, equitable and sustainable communities, and has served as Chief Executive Officer of the Presidio Trust since 2016. Her focus is on making the Presidio a place where people of all backgrounds and abilities find inspiration, recreation and relaxation. She brings a special passion for protecting the Presidio’s open spaces and for sustainability practices that aggressively reduce waste, water use, and greenhouse gasses. Jean champions the use of data and continuous improvement techniques to help the Presidio Trust deliver efficient and quality service to the public. Under her leadership, she has deepened the Presidio Trust’s relationship with the National Park Service and the non-profit Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. Previously, Jean led the San Mateo County Health System and the San Francisco Health Plan, which developed a first-in-the-nation program providing affordable health care to all uninsured San Franciscans. She also served as a Deputy City Attorney in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. Jean is a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). She has a degree in American history from Yale University and a JD from Yale Law School.

Steve O'Connell

CEO
Grosvenor Americas

Steve provides the strategic direction for Grosvenor Americas’ investment, development and financing activities. Steve O'Connell was appointed to the Grosvenor Americas Board in 2018 after joining in 2011. He became Chief Executive of Grosvenor Americas in 2019. Steve led Grosvenor’s Development team in San Francisco and successfully established its multifamily program there before being appointed Managing Director, Investment in 2015 where he oversaw Investment and Co-Investment activities in North America. He holds a B.Eng. degree from McGill University and an MBA from the UC Berkeley - Haas School of Business. Steve is an Executive Committee and Board member of UC Berkeley’s Fisher Center Policy Advisory Board, a member of the Bay Area Council Board of Directors and belongs to an Urban Land Institute (ULI) National Mixed-Use Development Council.

Michael Matthews

California Director of Public Policy
Facebook

Alicia John-Baptiste

CEO
SPUR

Alicia John-Baptiste is the president and CEO of SPUR. She is responsible for defining the overall vision and strategy for the organization. Alicia served for three years as SPUR's deputy director, overseeing policy and strategic initiatives and running the organization day to day. Prior to joining SPUR, she held senior public administration and public policy roles for the City and County of San Francisco, including chief of staff positions at both the San Francisco Planning Department and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. She holds a Masters degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University.

Ruby Bolaria-Shifrin

Manager
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Ruby Bolaria Shifrin manages the housing affordability program at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). CZI support efforts to generate housing supply, ensure equitable access, and build public and political will for housing through grants, technical assistance, strategic investments, and research and technology. Prior to CZI, she worked in real estate development managing multifamily mixed income development projects in San Francisco for Fivepoint (formerly Lennar Urban) and has experience in commercial real estate at JLL. Ruby also worked internationally at the Housing Department in Johannesburg, South Africa where she managed an in-situ upgrading pilot project. She started her career in environmental, public health, and social justice nonprofits as an organizer. Ruby has a strong commitment to housing equity and social justice and brings her unique mix of advocacy and technical expertise to CZI's housing work. She holds a BA in Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from University of California, Los Angeles.

Derecka Mehrens

Executive Director
Working Partnerships USA

Derecka Mehrens, Executive Director at Working Partnerships USA, brings fifteen years of community organizing, civic engagement, and public policy experience working in communities of color and with low and moderate-income families. Under Derecka's leadership, Working Partnerships USA co-founded Silicon Valley Rising, a coordinated regional campaign to inspire a tech-driven economy where all workers, their families and communities thrive. The unprecedented labor-faith-community alliance is working to build a new economic model that rebuilds the middle class, to raise wages and workplace standards for all workers in this valley, and to address a regional housing crisis that is pushing families and children to live in garages, cars, or near creek beds in order to survive. Silicon Valley Rising members have moved Apple, Google, and a half dozen other companies to increase standards and support contract worker organizing and policy campaigns to increase funding for affordable housing and protections for renters are moving across the Valley. Derecka also led Working Partnerships USA to launch a strategic plan for 2015-2018 including: improving the wages, benefits, and working conditions of 100,000 low-wage workers through industry and sector-based policy and organizing campaigns; developing cutting-edge health prevention programs aimed at eliminating growing health disparities based on race and income; and advancing progressive tax and fiscal policies through engaging our base of 60,000 infrequent voters in a new model of community-driven governance that connects mass-based civic engagement, deep grassroots organizing, and values-based leadership. As Working Partnerships USA's organizing director from 2008 to 2013, she was instrumental in developing organizing and campaign strategies to win policies improving the lives of workers and their families, including the 2012 minimum wage increase in the City of San Jose. She led the organization's non-partisan civic engagement programs building an organized base of more than 40,000 low-income communities of color in Silicon Valley, registering more than 14,000 voters and working to increase civic participation rates of voters of color and low-income voters in Santa Clara County. Mehrens is the daughter of a union construction worker and a union community college teacher and is married with two young children. She graduated from the University of Oregon with a bachelor's degree in Sociology, History and International Studies.

Luis Granados

Executive Director
MEDA SF

Jennifer Friedenbach

Executive Director
Coalition to Homelessness

Jennifer Martinez

Chief Strategy Officer
PICO California

Jennifer Martinez is the Chief Strategy Officer for PICO California, the largest faith-based community organizing network in California. PICO CA supports the development and action of grassroots leadership to advocate for systemic change that will lead to racial and economic justice. Since 2001, Jennifer has been organizing and advocating for housing justice, immigrant rights, criminal justice reform and quality education. Before joining PICO California, Jennifer was the Executive Director of a local PICO chapter in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jennifer has a BA from Stanford University and a PhD from the University of Nottingham, England.

Patrick Otellini

National Affordable Housing Director
Swinerton

Keith Brown

SVP
Sares Regis Group of Northern California

With over 30 years experience as a registered architect and development manager, Keith has directed the design and construction of many projects both large and small. His project involvements include the creation of large campus facilities, corporate tenant improvement programs, historic building renovations and adaptive reuse projects, and many free-standing retail, food service, institutional and residential buildings.

Sam Liccardo

Mayor
City of San Jose

Mayor Liccardo is a long-time San Josean, and the 65th Mayor of our city. Since taking office in 2015, he has worked diligently to build a safer, stronger, and more prosperous city. In 2018, San Jose residents re-elected Sam to serve San Jose for four more years. In Sam’s prior public service, he prosecuted a range of felony cases as a federal and local criminal prosecutor, from sexual assault and child exploitation to international narcotrafficking. In 2006, voters elected Sam to the first of his two terms on the City Council, where he led efforts to revitalize its downtown, preserve San José’s hillsides and open space, create an inclusionary housing policy to boost funding for affordable housing, and open a world-class soccer stadium for the San José Earthquakes. He served as a founding board member of Cristo Rey San Jose High School, an innovative Jesuit school that propels students from low-income immigrant families to college and beyond. Sam serves on a number of boards, including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Valley Transit Authority (twice as Chairperson), and serves as co-chair for Joint Venture Silicon Valley. He is a senior fellow for the American Leadership Forum-Silicon Valley, and is a Rodel Fellow at the Aspen Institute. Sam graduated from San José’s Bellarmine College Prep and from Georgetown University, where he was captain of the heavyweight crew. He received a law degree from Harvard Law School, and a master’s degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Sam and his wife, Jessica, live in the Northside neighborhood, north of Downtown. They live within blocks of Jessica’s childhood home, the home of three of Sam’s grandparents, and the neighborhood grocery store that Sam’s grandparents owned and operated in the 1950’s. Sam descended from Sicilian and Irish immigrants, as well as from the first Mexican settlers in the Bay Area.

Libby Schaaf

Mayor
City of Oakland

Michael Covarrubias

CEO
TMG Partners

Michael Covarrubias joined TMG in 1988; he oversees all of the company’s operations and has directed the company since 1995. Prior to TMG: Mr. Covarrubias’ professional background includes 17 years with Union Bank, including commercial and real estate lending as well as administrative management. In his last position, he served as Senior Vice President and Manager of Union Bank’s Silicon Valley Regional Real Estate Center. Mr. Covarrubias is a graduate of the University of San Francisco with a Bachelor’s degree in business administration.

Tomiquia Moss

Former CEO
Hamilton Families

Mary Papazian

President
San Jose State University