Newly appointed Deputy Treasurer of Housing and Economic Development, Jovan Agee (right) with LA County Board of Supervisors member Mark Ridley-Thomas.
On Monday, January 17th, Fiona Ma assumed office as California’s State Treasurer and she also announced her top staff appointments.
Treasurer Ma’s appointments are as follows: Genevieve V. Jopanda as Chief of Staff, Kasey O’Connor as Legislative Director, Mark DeSio as Communications Director, Frank Ruffino as Pension and Benefits Director, Kathryn Asprey as Director of Constituent Affairs, Gloria Li as State Director of External Affairs, Tim Schaefer as Deputy Treasurer of Public Finance, Audrey Noda as Deputy Treasurer of Health and Education, and Jovan Agee as Deputy Treasurer of Housing and Economic Development.
Jovan Agee was previously appointed in March 2018, as the Deputy Treasurer for Legislative Affairs under State Treasurer John Chiang. Agee is solutions-oriented and passionate about commercial and residential development, community revitalization and wealth building.
Agee has held positions as a veteran legislative advocate, strategic coalition builder and community relations professional. He has more than 15 years of government affairs experience and served as Capitol Director for Los Angeles Democrat, former Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas. In this position, he established the assembly member’s legislative agenda and oversaw the staff.
From 2015 to 2016, Jovan held the position as senior advisor to former Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and worked on initiatives that would increase the funding allocated to the businesses of Black people and people of color. In 2018, Sacramento Business Journal named him to the ’40 Under 40’ list of regional achievers.
Agee graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Government from California State University Sacramento. In his early career, Agee was the political and legislative director at the United Domestic Workers Union, Local 3930 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. His role was to build a political and legislative department which grew from one to 11 employees and he oversaw the budget increase from $400,000 to $2.4 million in his time there.
In addition, he took lead on the initiatives to make sure that California home care workers could receive direct deposit, was a constituent of the team that raised California’s minimum wage, and serves as a strategic advisor and board member for multiple non-profit organizations throughout the state.