Lucia Ortega Villasana is Chief Advancement Officer of ConnectED: The National Center for College and Career. In her professional career, she has served as the Director for the Center of Public Service (UC Riverside), National Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations (Hispanic Scholarship Fund), Executive Director of the Berkeley Center For Cosmological Physics (UC Berkeley), Vice President of Advancement for Nature Bridge and Chief Advancement Officer (Blue Oak School in Napa Valley).

Lucia has over 22 years of experience in the field of fundraising – developing and managing public and private sector partnerships, Fortune 100 corporate foundations, national and private community foundations. Through her work in governmental affairs, she earned the title of Principal Investigator within the UC system and received over $20M in competitive grant awards.  While at the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, she contributed to the historic National Ad Council’s campaign, Tus Palabras de Hoy, in collaboration with Univision.

Lucia attended Riverside City College and UC Riverside, with a major in Business and Ethnic Studies. She has consulted with the UC statewide program, The Puente Project and has volunteered as a board or committee member with The Mexican Museum of San Francisco, The Chicana Latina Foundation, Puertas  Abiertas, and the County of Napa Valley Hispanic Network.

In her private time, she enjoys travel, Latina literature and novels, learning French and Physics, and spending time with her husband and family. She lives each day with a reminder that “Si Se Puede” and sees no barriers to what the future holds for underserved students who also believe in higher learning.