Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Soyla Fernandez

56. Soyla Fernandez

The daughter of migrant workers from Mexico, Soyla Fernandez spent time in her childhood working the same agricultural fields they did. Motivated for a better life, she earned a degree in politics from UC Santa Cruz, a path that eventually led her to open Fernández Government Solutions in 2004, the first lobbying firm in California owned and operated by a Latina. Now known as Fernandez Jensen Kimmelshue Government Affairs, it has become yet another one of Sacramento’s top lobbying firms, having received more than $4.33 million through the first 15 months of the legislative cycle. The firm boasts some serious heavyweight clients: Accenture, Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Southern California Edison, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, Meta (the owners of Facebook), U.S. Bancorp and Verizon. In addition to work as a lobbyist, Fernandez previously received gubernatorial appointments to the Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency and the Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency, and was a senior consultant to the Assembly Budget Committee and former Assembly Speaker and LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Updated Aug. 7, 2024