Experience: Noelle Simmons brings over two decades of public sector experience in California government. She held multiple leadership roles with the City and County of San Francisco, where she most recently served as the Chief Deputy Director at Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. In that capacity, she helped lead the city’s pandemic response and recovery for people experiencing homelessness, stewarded the department through a period of significant organizational change and was instrumental in developing the city’s 5-year plan to prevent and end homelessness. From 2007 to 2021, she was a Deputy Director at the San Francisco Human Services Agency, where she administered state and federally authorized public safety net programs touching the lives of over 200,000 local residents and led the agency’s implementation of major initiatives including the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion and the launch of the JobsNOW subsidized employment program. Noelle began her government career in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office, where she managed the city’s $6.5 billion budget as the Director of Public Policy & Finance. Since 2024, Noelle has worked as a consultant to local government agencies, the State of California and private philanthropic organizations, offering strategic planning and thought partnership, policy analysis and design, facilitation and training services. Noelle has years of direct experience in organizational leadership, performance management, building teams, driving systems reform and spearheading cross-sector collaboration. She is a hands-on practitioner who is skilled at grappling with complexity, extracting meaning from data and interfacing with diverse groups of stakeholders.

Education:  Noelle holds a Master of Public Policy and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Skills: Public sector administration; financial management; change management; government relations; legislative advocacy; policy development; strategic planning; program design; data-driven management; cross-sector collaboration; public-private partnership.

Equilibrium is: connection with family and friends, a healthy body and mind, sunshine and fresh air, being able to hear myself think

Connect with me: noelle@eqcollab.org