Staff Leadership

Our staff leadership support includes some the environmental movement's brightest minds. Our team lends their expertise and guidance to the Climate Recovery Partnership and works closely with our volunteer leaders.

Jackie Brown | Bruce Hamilton | Sarah Hodgdon | Jesse Simons

Jackie Brown
Chief Advancement Officer, Sierra Club
Jackie Brown, who joined the Sierra Club as chief advancement officer in 2006, has more than 25 years experience in major gift fundraising and management. Prior to her tenure with the Club Brown spent 16 years in Development at Stanford University, most recently as associate vice president for Medical Development, where she spearheaded a $100 million fundraising campaign for the Clinical Sciences Research Center and a $50 million cancer treatment center initiative. She has also served as vice president and managing director with Grenzebach Glier and Associates, one of the nation's leading philanthropic management consulting firms. Brown has been active in the northern California environmental community for more than 25 years.

Bruce Hamilton
Deputy Executive Director, Sierra Club
Bruce Hamilton has worked for the Sierra Club for 34 years and was appointed deputy executive director in 2009. He started as a local organizer in the Northern Plains states, then served as national field director and later national conservation director. Hamilton has been involved in designing and implementing campaigns to promote Smart Energy Solutions, preserve America's Wild Legacy, and support Safe Healthy Communities at the local, state, regional, federal, and international levels. He served on the Environmental Support Center Board of Directors, the Apollo Alliance Steering Committee, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Advisory Council on Sustainable Economies. He is presently a Director of the Wildlands Endowment Fund and a Member of the World Commission on Protected Areas.

Sarah Hodgdon
Conservation Director, Sierra Club
As conservation director for Sierra Club, Sarah Hodgdon oversees the organization's national campaigns and programs including the Beyond Coal, Beyond Oil, and Resilient Habitats campaigns. She also manages the organization's federal lobbyists, organizers, lawyers as well as the programs dedicated to partnerships with labor, environmental justice groups, and youth. Finally, she is responsible for the organization's outings programs. Hodgdon was recently part of the team that landed a $50 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies and has been at the helm of the organization's plan to double the size of the staff and activists committed to replacing as much as a third of the nation's coal plants with clean energy by 2020. Prior to joining the Sierra Club, she was executive director of Dogwood Alliance, a North Carolina based forest protection organization from 2000-2006. Sarah is a graduate of the 1994 class of Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing.

Jesse Simons
Climate Recovery Partnership Director, Sierra Club
Jesse Simons was named director of Sierra Club's Climate Recovery Partnership in 2011. In this role he is responsible for building out the strategy and funding case for the Club's major climate campaigns including Beyond Coal, Beyond Oil and Resilient Habitats. Simons also oversees all Business Development functions within the Sierra Club, with a focus on partnerships with businesses that share the Club's vision for a clean energy future. He began his tenure at the Club 10 years ago as an advancement director for the Club's midwest region where he played a key role building out and financing the Beyond Coal campaign. In 2006, Simons took on the role of senior advancement director for the western region where he remained a key member of the Beyond Coal campaign's leadership team. Prior to joining the Sierra Club, he was President of NonStopNet, where he raised $30 million and helped ramp up the company to over 200 employees.