Jesse Simons

“I’ve worked with Jesse to create his initial brand and website for SOLARCYCLE. Jesse has been involved every step of the way. He is passionate about his work and was willing to put in extra time to confer with me on what I was providing for their company. Jesse works hard and gets results, all the while ensuring everyone around him has what they need to succeed as well. I am very excited to work with Jesse again in the near future.”

“In his almost 20 years at the Sierra Club, Jesse has been an important part of some of the most successful campaigns in our organization’s history. Jesse cut his teeth with the Sierra Club in our Chicago office, where he helped to raise money and refine the strategies of our fledgling Beyond Coal campaign. He not only helped to raise tens of millions of dollars in the early years, which helped the Sierra Club and our allies stop nearly 200 coal plants from being built, but he also redefined how our campaigners and fundraisers could work together, modeling a deeper partnership that, at our best, we still do today. Jesse has vision. He was one of the early voices urging the Sierra Club to call for an economy powered by 100% clean, renewable energy, produced by high-wage, family-sustaining jobs. It’s an idea that seems obvious now, but when we were first debating it 7-8 years ago, 100% clean energy was a controversial idea even inside the Sierra Club. The fact that it’s now a cornerstone of the President’s climate agenda shows it’s an idea whose time had come. The Sierra Club would not have been so effective in pushing for ambitious climate policy at the state and local level without Jesse’s advocacy and leadership. I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of working with Jesse when he was a Director of Principal Gifts, my Chief of Staff, and as National Program Director - on more campaigns and projects that I can count. He helped me refine and achieve my vision, and was always someone I could trust to get things done. Most recently he was integral in supporting our brilliant political team in mobilizing tens of thousands of volunteers in last year’s elections. I’ll miss Jesse’s energy, ambition, capacity for self-reflection and the fire in his belly that will not go out. Perhaps Jesse’s best legacy is the leadership that he’s leaving in place inside the Program Department. He was very deliberate and thoughtful in his approach to hiring highly effective managers with a deep commitment to equity in action. A key project he led over the last 3 years was a department-wide re-organization to meld our highly effective campaigns with our long term power-building objectives toward our vision of a world where everyone has access to clean air, clean water, healthy communities, good jobs and a stable climate. I would be thrilled to have Jesse in any senior management or leadership position. He has been a big part of my success as ED and I am confident he will be a powerful asset wherever he goes. ”