Task Force

 

Jesus "Jesse" Leon

Leading the JPMorgan Chase Foundation in South Florida, Vice President Jesus (Jesse) Leon is successfully implementing a new funding strategy to make a greater impact and create better outcomes in the community. The financial services company is aligning its global corporate responsibility and philanthropic initiatives while identifying and creating partnerships with best-in-class not-for-profits. In managing a multi-million-dollar philanthropic portfolio, Leon oversees all local grant making and place-based projects in education reform (K-12); community development such as affordable housing, workforce development, foreclosure prevention, and financial literacy; and arts-based education.

Prior to JPMorgan Chase, Leon was a Vice President of Real Estate Development with Bank of America. He managed $800 million of mixed-income, multi-family real estate development projects and various acquisition-rehab projects throughout Florida. His projects included senior and multi-family rental housing, and infrastructure for master development projects.

Leon grew up in inner-city southeast San Diego in a low- income Mexican family. He attended San Diego City College before transferring to the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies with an emphasis in Social Policy and Social Justice. Leon studied abroad in Spain for an academic year and in Cuba for a summer, where he conducted research on the spread HIV in Havana. He earned a master’s degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. While there, Leon worked on a number of projects involving economic development on Native American reservations and was the marketing director for the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy. He is also a fellow from the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence as well as a Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow A native Spanish speaker, he also is proficient in Portuguese.

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