Candidate for
Board of Education; County of San Francisco

Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Heather Hiles to the San Francisco Board of Education on January 12, 2004. Since assuming the seat, Heather has become a vocal advocate for public school children, families, teachers and staff. On the school board, Heather Hiles is working to improve every school and create opportunity for every child. She is working to make neighborhood schools centers of community life and a safe place for our kids to stay after school. She is bringing academically rigorous Dream Schools to under-served communities. And, to make sure that our money is well spent, she is fighting for better financial accountability at every level.

Heather's passion for excellence in public education comes from her own experience as a student in public schools in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Raised by a determined single mother, Heather was encouraged to challenge herself and achieve in school. The only person of color in her high school to take college prep classes and sit for the SAT + in a school that was over 50% African-American and Latino + Heather recognized early on the gaps in academic opportunity and achievement. Majoring in Development and Ethnic Studies at U.C. Berkeley, she wrote her thesis on the role of education in creating and perpetuating social and economic opportunity. She went on to obtain an MBA with emphasis in Finance and Strategic Planning from Yale University School of Management.

Heather has 17 years of professional experience as a small business owner, social entrepreneur and nonprofit executive in the Bay Area. She is the founder and president of The Hiles Group, LLC, a professional consulting firm offering strategy development and management services for individual and family philanthropies, foundations, nonprofit organizations and professional advisors.

Before establishing The Hiles Group in 2001, Heather was the first CEO of San Francisco Works, a public/private workforce development intermediary that was nationally recognized for its effectiveness and innovation in designing sector-based training programs and building collaborations among businesses, for-profit and community-based training organizations, public administrators and policy makers. She founded and chaired the San Francisco Asset Building Initiative (now SF EARN), a city-wide asset accumulation and economic development program for low-income families.

Heather's early career was in public policy. She was a deputy political director of the 1992 Clinton/Gore campaign, and in 1990-91 was a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs, interning with the SF Department of Public Health, the Bayview-Hunter's Point Foundation and Urban Strategies Council. She also worked with low-income teens and families in Oakland, CA as a program director at Youth Employment Partnership and Break the Cycle.