Jessica “Jessie” Buendia is the Coalition for Green Capital’s Chief Impact Officer. CGC is a nonprofit with a mission to halt climate change by accelerating investment in clean energy technologies. As Chief Impact Officer, Jessie helps finance clean technology deployment in low-income and disadvantaged communities, while advancing the White House administration’s Justice40 goals.

Before coming to CGC, Jessie held positions within the public, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors on climate equity. Most recently, she served as Vice President of Sustainability and Green For All National Director at Dream.Org, a national organization working at the intersection of the environmental, economic, and racial justice movements to advance solutions to poverty and pollution and to ensure that the people hit first and worst by pollution and climate change do not benefit last and least from the solutions. Under her leadership, Green For All worked to advance proactive bipartisan climate policy, support the implementation of Biden’s Justice40 initiative, ensures investments from the Inflation Reduction Act are directed to the communities most impacted by poverty and pollution, and uplift Black and Brown entrepreneurs and job pathways in the green economy.

Before coming to Green For All, Jessie held positions within the public, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors on climate equity. Most recently, Jessie served as an executive at the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC) under the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. SGC promotes sustainability, health, and equity across the State by helping California achieve its climate change and racial equity goals through place-based, community-driven infrastructure investments and transformative programming. At SGC, Jessie oversaw a $1 billion annual budget and launched racial equity and technical assistance initiatives that expanded California’s reach and impact in communities and propelled SGC as a leader on equity at the state level. Jessie spearheaded the passage of the nation’s first state-level, multi-agency Racial Equity vision statement, action plan and served as the State’s host for the Capitol Collaborative on Race and Equity and the Interagency Racial Equity Working Group.

Jessie has held positions at the Greenlining Institute, East Bay Community Law Center, Janelle Monae’s Fem the Future Foundation, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, San Francisco Foundation, Health Access Foundation, Rose Foundation, and California State Legislature. She has also lived and worked in Mexico, France, India, and South Africa. Jessie has a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Princeton University, an Advanced Project Management Certificate from Stanford University, and a Bachelor’s Degree from Macalester College. She is a certified coach with a focus on building transformational leadership within the social justice sector. She is originally from Iowa and currently resides in Sacramento with her wife and children.