Rising Stars: Maya Polon, Paschal Roth Public Affairs

Maya Polon stays focused on making sure the public realizes how the legislation she champions affects real people.

“What I really love getting to do is finding someone with an inspiring story and connecting a reporter to them,” said the 28-year-old senior strategist for Paschal Roth Public Affairs.

Her skill in that area has not gone unnoticed. Her colleague Randall Echevarria said her contributions have been “nothing short of exceptional, particularly in her ability to garner local, state and national earned media for our clients working on education, child care and labor issues.” He praises her “strategic thinking, innovative approaches and unwavering commitment to client success.”

In one recent success, Polon let a San Francisco Chronicle reporter know about the state running months late on paying low-income child care providers in Contra Costa County.

“Within days of her reporting, the county issued months overdue paychecks,” Polon said. “I love getting to help my clients share their stories and am so grateful for the reporters who take the time to learn the issues top to bottom and report on injustices.”

Polon grew up in Burbank and is the child of two parents who worked in show business and then made a dramatic career change to buy a kosher bakery. Her father was an interactive TV game show producer, working for “Card Shark,” “Jeopardy,” “Wheel of Fortune” and “Tic-Tac-Dough.” Her mother was a costumer for TV and film.

“My parents completely shifted in the middle of their lives,” she said, adding that their bold moves have given her confidence to try new possibilities.

While some people who haven’t grown up with a family in politics believe it’s hard to enter the field, Polon never thought that way.  “I never had a strong feeling that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do,” she said. “I always thought I’ll figure out a way to make it happen.”

“I love getting to help my clients share their stories and am so grateful for the reporters who take the time to learn the issues top to bottom and report on injustices.”

She traces her interest in politics to listening to the National Public Radio broadcasts her parents played in the car. That led to her confusing her classmates when she would go to kindergarten wanting to talk about the Bush-Gore election.

Polon entered the University of the Pacific intending to study international relations but switched her interests after receiving encouragement from a professor teaching an entry-level political science course. The professor saw her passion for changing the world and recommended her for an internship at the Capitol. She was excited when she landed a spot on an Assembly Policy Committee.

“I had no idea who my Assembly member was and I had no understanding of state politics,” she said. “I came out of it said, ‘This is what I want to do.’”

Additional internships followed and she ended up graduating a year early with a degree in political science. She then moved to Washington, D.C. where she had another internship working at then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s legislative office. On the last day of the internship, she got a job offer to come back to California to work as a deputy communications director for Assemblymember Mike Gatto. By age 21, she was working as a press aide in Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon’s office.

At her current job as a senior strategist, she spends her days figuring out how to take complex policy goals and communicate them to the public. She has to learn new issues quite frequently, depending on the needs of her clients. This can take some time and patience, she said. “Policy people understand policy so much, that when they have to talk about something, it’s not easy to digest at first,” she said.

The internships she completed gave her a better appreciation for the interns she works with now. She makes sure interns she works with get quality opportunities for work experience. “I had internships where I was answering phones all day and didn’t learn a lot,” she said.

When she’s not working, she likes to go on hikes with her Goldendoodle dog, go skiing in the winter and travel. She plans to visit five countries this year.

She became an avid fan of Formula One car races after binge watching the Netflix series “Drive to Survive” during the pandemic. She loves the sport so much that she wakes up at 5am to see races and is planning to travel to Montreal to watch a race. “I love watching people so insanely good at what they do compete,” she said.

Polon is happy at Paschal Roth because the firm allows her to work independently with clients who match her progressive values. She still is learning something new all the time. Whatever the future holds, one thing for Polon is clear. “I want to still be learning something in every job I have,” she said.