Jeff Harris
Board Chair
Jeff Harris is an accomplished non-profit executive who is passionate about programs that serve youth, promote academic achievement, increase civic engagement and fight for racial justice and equality. He founded JB Harris Consulting to support organizations bringing programs and resources to mitigate the effects of poverty, violence and trauma in BIPOC communities that prevent people from achieving their full potential.
After graduating from UC Berkeley, Harris launched his career with The Junior State of America (JSA), a non-profit civic engagement organization committed to strengthening American democracy by educating high school students to be informed, ethical and active civic leaders. He spearheaded efforts to increase diversity in the organization while building Southern California into its largest and most successful region. After creating new programs, growing and overseeing multiple summer programs, and establishing the organization’s Washington DC presence, Harris rose to the position of Chief Executive Officer. As CEO, Harris led strategic planning, rebranding, PR and marketing campaigns that helped JSA evolve from a primarily debate organization to the nation’s largest student-run action-civics organization serving over 15,000 students annually.
Harris recently served as the Director of School and Community Partnerships for the Compton Unified School District. By bringing resources to the district, Harris supported Arts, STEM, literacy, athletic and other co-curricular programs for the 35 campuses serving over 20,000 K-12 students while managing over 55 partner relationships. Leveraging relationships with the entertainment industry, Harris helped build and support innovative programs like the “Bonus Tracks” music industry curriculum from Capitol Records and the Career Technical Education supplemental 8-week “Music Unites Musicversity.”
Jeff serves on the board of directors for several notable organizations including The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Food Forward and Junior State of America. In his spare time, Jeff balances exploring the great outdoors through hiking with sitting on the couch watching football and exploring the LA food scene.
