Biography
Jessy Tolkan
President and CEO, Drive Agency
Jessy Tolkan is the President and CEO of Drive Agency. With nearly 20 years of campaign and movement experience, her passion and drive for transformative change have taken her around the world and across issue sectors in pursuit of building the necessary power to win.
Prior to founding Drive Agency, Jessy served as Partner at PURPOSE and Co-Founder of Purpose Labs, a ground-breaking approach to campaigning and collaborating with philanthropy to drive change. During her tenure at Purpose, she helped expand their global footprint by opening campaign offices in India, Brasil, Eastern Europe, Indonesia, and Kenya. The Purpose Climate Lab, where Jessy remains a Collaborator and Senior Advisor, employs 40 staff globally, and has raised and invested over 40 million dollars in climate campaigning infrastructure over the past 6 years.
Over the course of her career, Jessy has built and led a series of powerful progressive institutions. Starting with her role as Executive Director of the Energy Action Coalition, where, under her leadership, the Energy Action Coalition grew a generation-wide movement of millennials to be at the frontlines of a national and international debate on climate change – long before Climate Change dominated the headlines or political priorities of our leaders. Jessy then went on to serve as the Co-Executive Director of the Citizen Engagement Laboratory, and Senior Advisor to the Working Families Party.
Jessy has consulted with leading social change organizations in the United States and around the world including: Progressive Change Campaign Committee, GetEqual, HeadCount, 1sky, 350.org, Groundswell, Web of Change, and Wellstone Action, The Womens Forum for the Economy and Society, and Global Witness.
She’s been featured in Time Magazine, Glamour Magazine, The New York Times, Hard Ball with Chris Matthews, and Vanity Fair Magazine. Rolling Stone Magazine named her one of the 100 agents of change in America.
Jessy Tolkan received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Political Science, with a focus in African-American Studies.
