Jessie Ryan is the Executive Vice President of the Campaign for College Opportunity, leading the organization’s advocacy and policy efforts to increase college access and student success in California. Jessie shepherded efforts to simplify the transfer pathway (SB1440), reform remedial education at community colleges (AB 705), and increase funding at the CSU and UC. In December 2017, Jessie was elected president of the SacramentoCity Unified School District, Board of Education where her “Safe Haven School District”policy was lifted-up as a state and national model. Prior to her work with the Campaign,Jessie served as a Circuit Rider for the Great Valley Center’s Community-based AssistancePrograms (CAPs). She has participated in Emerge California, the Women’s Policy Institute, the Institute for Developing Emerging Area Leaders (IDEAL) program and was named the 2018 “Woman of Inspiration” by the Sacramento Kings. The daughter of a struggling single welfare mother, Jessie was the first in her family to graduate from college. She attended Sacramento City College, holds her bachelor’s degree from San Francisco StateUniversity and received her Master of Arts in Leadership Studies from Saint Mary’s College of California. She resides in Oak Park with her husband, Arsenio Mataka, Special Assistant to the Attorney General and their two children.