Announcing SCG’s Workforce Funders Collaborative – First Meeting

Alexa Eggleston is the founder of Audacia Consulting LLC. Prior to starting her consulting business, she was a Senior Program Officer at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation where she led a national youth behavioral health initiative to increase prevention and early intervention approaches in health care, schools, and workforce programs for young people. Prior to joining the Hilton Foundation, Ms. Eggleston served as a Program Director at the Council of State Governments Justice Center, and led government relations, policy and advocacy activities for the National Council for Mental Wellbeing and the Legal Action Center. She received her Bachelor of Arts from John Carroll University and her Juris Doctor from University of Maryland.

Kimá Joy Taylor, MD, MPH is the founder of Anka Consulting and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Urban Institute. Prior to this she served as the National Drug Addiction Treatment and Harm Reduction Program Director at the Open Society Foundations, overseeing grantmaking that supported the expansion of access to a non-punitive continuum of integrated, evidence informed and culturally effective substance use disorder services. Prior to joining the Open Society Foundations, Taylor served as Deputy Commissioner for the Baltimore City Health Department, a health and social policy legislative assistant for Senator Sarbanes and a pediatrician at a federally qualified health center in Washington DC. Taylor is a graduate of Brown University, Brown University School of Medicine, and the Georgetown University residency program in pediatrics. In 2002, Taylor was awarded a Commonwealth Foundation fellowship in minority health policy at Harvard University.

Jessica Ku Kim has worked in economic and workforce development within LA County since 2005 and brings local community knowledge and trust, field experience, subject matter expertise, organizational and sector leadership, and demonstrated outcomes for economic and workforce development programs and services, public-private partnerships, and collaborative systems change. As Chief Deputy of LA County’s Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), Jessica oversees the operations of DEO to ensure enhanced economic and workforce development policy, programs and services, commissions, administration, public affairs and communications, and information technology and data management and analytics that serve to create quality jobs, help small businesses and high-road employers start and grow, and build vibrant local communities and spaces.

Previously, Jessica had served the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) as Vice President of Economic & Workforce Development where she had oversight of worker and small business-focused programs and services, strategic engagement with the public, private, social, and philanthropic sectors, and increasing regional resources, opportunities, and alignment. She sat on both the City and County Workforce Development Boards with direct policy and budgetary responsibility for the two largest public workforce systems in the state. Prior to LAEDC, she has held key roles with the South Bay Workforce Investment Board, ACCORD Community First, The BRIDGE, and Korean Churches for Community Development. She holds a BA and MPA degrees from the California State University and University of California systems as well as numerous advisory roles in the education, economic and workforce development, and AAPI advocacy spaces.