As a senior consultant, Jessie has supported partners including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the NCD Alliance, UNICEF USA, and the Clean Air Fund. With a background in public health, she brings 20 years of expertise in philanthropy, grantmaking, program design and evaluation, with a focus sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and feminist movement building. She is deeply committed to co-creating solutions with local partners to advance human rights and works closely with civil society organizations, activists, health providers, governments, academia and others committed to social change.
In addition to her work with GHV, Jessie is also a co-founder of the Working Group for Trust-based Philanthropy for Global Intermediaries and the Working Group for the Nairobi Principles on Abortion, Prenatal Testing and Disability. Through Owen Consulting Inc., she co-leads independent evaluations of several Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Government Innovation programs including the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative and the Global Mayors Challenge.
Previously, Jessie spent seven years with International Women’s Health Coalition (now Fós Feminista) where she led the design, implementation, and evaluation of a multi-million-dollar trust-based grant making and capacity-strengthening program in the Global South to advance the SRHR of women, girls, and other historically marginalized populations. Prior, she was a program officer at Adolescents for International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region.
A native English speaker, Jessie has full professional fluency in Spanish. She holds an MPH from Columbia University and a BS in Spanish and Latin American Studies from Georgetown University. She has worked extensively in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. She currently resides in New York City.
Outside of work, Jessie can be found climbing the stairs in her 6th floor walk up to her garden!
Areas of Expertise:
• Grant making and grants management
• Learning and evaluation
• Organizational strategy