Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Jennifer Siebel Newsom

3. Jennifer Siebel Newsom

The First Partner of California is many things aside from being the wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom. She is an outspoken advocate for issues like health care reform, gender pay equity, social media addiction, and countering negative stereotypes and imagery of women in the media. She is an accomplished documentary filmmaker and a former actress with over 40 credits on IMDB. She is a sexual assault survivor who testified against her alleged attacker, film studio mogul Harvey Weinstein (that specific case ended in a mistrial, though he was convicted multiple other counts of sexual assault against other victims). Perhaps most important here, Siebel Newsom is widely perceived as a vital advisor to the governor, particularly on issues of gender equity, mental health and children’s well-being. That importance and influence is only sure to increase as her husband’s national profile grows. Whatever his eventual path, Siebel Newsom has shown she will not only share the road with him, but also blaze her own trail at the same time. She graduated with honors from Stanford in 1996 with a degree in Latin American studies and earned an MBA from Stanford in 2001.

Updated Aug. 7, 2024