FEATURING

Jenny Higgins-Bradanini

San José is the community where Jenny raised her family and established a successful professional career. She has organized parents and neighbors for school reform and held small community events, eventually leading to major actions from San José to Washington D.C.

She was hired as the first full time employee at a San José startup, a company that is now international with over 300 employees, and where, after 20 years, Jenny now serves as a consultant. It was during these early years that her husband began his own small business, with Jenny as an integral part in helping the business start and grow. In 2005, they purchased a home in the Los Alamitos neighborhood.

Jenny was also a very active mom whose two children both attended Los Alamitos Elementary School. She was involved with the school’s PTA, achieving 100% membership during her time as Membership Chair. She also focused her leadership efforts on the arts programs, Green Team, the Cornerstone Asset Building Program while supporting various youth athletics. She earned recognition as the 2010 Volunteer of the Year by San José Unified School District.

It was during this time that Jenny’s interests expanded beyond the schools. Driven by the healthcare stories of her neighbors, and her own, she took action. Jenny raised nearly a million dollars for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. As a spokesperson for Endometriosis awareness, she helped coordinate a march on Washington D.C. and testified before Congress in 2014. A passionate advocate, she continues this fight still, advocating for better attention and investments in women’s healthcare.

Successful in her professional career and volunteer work, Jenny took on a new challenge to support her community in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Like many of our neighbors across San José and the country, she directed her voice and skills to a new cause. Jenny became the President of Women’s March Bay Area, organizing over half a million Bay Area voices. She served as Co-Lead for the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Women’s March San José, one of the largest community actions in San José’s history.

With each challenge, task, or opportunity that Jenny engages in, she seeks to lift others up and forward. She utilizes her skills and knowledge to maximize the impact she can deliver to help others. In these pursuits, she joined former San José Councilmember Rocha’s staff as a Policy Aide, to research and review policy. She also provides support to local community groups, like Silicon Valley Cares and the March For Our Lives San José chapter with their 2018 and 2019 marches. Jenny is also trained as a Community Emergency Response Team member for District 10 and San José.

Now she is seeking the open-seat for San José City Council District 10, the same community where she raised her children, joined a startup that launched an incredibly successful international professional career, and found unity with neighbors in Almaden and Blossom Hill to help our children and families thrive.

Jenny recently relocated to the Mountain Shadows/Creekside South neighborhood of District 10, near Almaden Rd. and McKean Rd. Her daughter, a Valley Christian graduate, is currently in her second year of college in Washington, and her son is a senior at Pioneer High School. In addition to her professional career, Jenny has her own jewelry design small business in which she donates proceeds to local community organizations. She recently joined the Women’s March Foundation as their Director of Development, where she is helping to mobilize people throughout California and the country. She is also an appointed member of the Santa Clara County Women’s Equality Leadership Council. Jenny enjoys supporting her son’s athletics, hiking the Almaden Hills with her two dogs, Ace & Combi, and gardening with her cat, Dandy.

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Matt Mahan

Matt Mahan is Co-founder and CEO of Brigade, a Bay Area-based startup that built the world’s first nonpartisan "voter network" to bring greater transparency and accountability to all levels of government. Most of Brigade's team and intellectual property were recently acquired by Pinterest and Countable, respectively. Matt was previously the CEO of Causes, one of the first and largest Facebook Apps, which helped people across the world raise awareness and funds for local nonprofits. Causes users raised over $50M for US nonprofits alone. Prior to his career in software, Matt taught English and History at Joseph George Middle School in Alum Rock, San Jose through the Teach for America program and was a Rockefeller Fellow in South America for one year. Matt grew up in Watsonville, CA, attended Bellarmine for high school and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, where he was also student body president. He currently serves on the boards of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Almaden Valley Community Association. He and his wife Silvia are raising their daughter Nina in the Santa Teresa Foothills neighborhood of District 10.