Anne Stuhldreher, Director
Anne Stuhldreher is the Director of The Financial Justice Project in the Office of the Treasurer for the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco is the first city in the nation to launch a Financial Justice Project to assess and reform how fines, fees, and financial penalties impact the city's low-income communities of color.
Throughout her career, Ms. Stuhldreher has advanced innovations in local economic empowerment, civic engagement and public interest journalism. Ms. Stuhldreher has a distinguished track record of working with public officials to create public private partnerships that financially empower lower income residents. In San Francisco, she brought people together to initiate and launch initiatives like: Bank on San Francisco (that spurs banks to create starter accounts for the estimated one in five Americans who don’t have them); the Working Families Credit, and Kindergarten to College. As a Senior Policy Advisor to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver, she helped start the WE Connect Campaign and Bank on California. The “Bank on” strategy that Ms. Stuhldreher conceived is being replicated in dozens of cities. She also served as a Senior Program Manager for the California Endowment, a statewide health justice philanthropic foundation.
Ms Stuhldreher also authors op-eds and articles in outlets such as the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Sacramento Bee. She has advised a wide range of elected officials, financial institutions, and community organizations. Formerly, Ms. Stuhldreher worked at the Ford Foundation, and was the Associate Director of Opportunity Fund, a Community Development Financial Institution in Northern California. She is currently a senior fellow with the Aspen Institute's Financial Security Program. She lives in San Francisco.
Michelle Lau, Senior Manager
Michelle Lau is the Senior Manager of The Financial Justice Project in the Office of the Treasurer for the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco is the first city in the nation to launch a Financial Justice Project to assess and reform how fines, fees, and financial penalties impact the city's low-income communities of color. In this role, she conducts research on fine and fee pain points to assess and advance potential reforms locally and statewide in California, designs and implements discounts and alternatives to fine and fees, and amplifies The Financial Justice Project's communications strategy. Prior to her work with the City, Michelle worked as a civic sector consultant where she partnered with government agencies, foundations, and not-for-profit organizations. Michelle holds a Master of Public Policy from UC Berkeley and an undergraduate degree from Princeton University.
Cecilia Perez, Manager
Cecilia Perez (she/they) is a Manager at The Financial Justice Project. In this role, she supports communications outreach and strategy, evaluates program performance, and manages relationships with city departments, community organizations, and legal advocates. Cecilia is a queer Xicanx who is passionate about queer liberation, racial, economic, and environmental justice. They obtained their Master of Public Policy degree from UC Berkeley in 2022 and shortly after were invited to teach an economics course for the PPIA Junior Summer Institute Fellowship Program—a competitive program that prepares BIPOC undergraduate students for careers in public service. As an economics instructor, Cecilia introduced students to various economic frameworks and discussed the role of money, power, and incentives in creating and maintaining economic systems.
Cecilia has worked in a variety of policy and academic institutes such as the UC Berkeley Opportunity Lab, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the Greenlining Institute, and NextGen America. Cecilia’s experience in the private, non-profit, and public sectors has informed her nuanced approach to problem-solving and reimagining more collective and intersectional public policy and economic frameworks.
Neha Singh, Graduate Intern
Neha Singh (she/her) is a Graduate Intern of The Financial Justice Project. In this role, her primary duties include conducting research, communicating findings, analyzing legislation, and helping to implement real reforms that are feasible for San Francisco departments, and meaningful for low-income individuals. As a first-year Master of Public Policy student at UC Berkeley, Neha is studying the intersection of policy and socioeconomic justice, with a focus on income and wealth disparity. During her first year, Neha served as graduate student instructor teaching Wealth and Poverty, which examines the organization of political economy and why the distribution of earnings, wealth, and opportunities is diverging in and beyond the United States. Prior to pursuing her graduate degree, Neha worked as a bank examiner for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) examining a range of community and large banks to enforce compliance with federal law.
Neha’s dedication to love and community drives her pursuit of social change. She firmly believes that policies should not only address immediate challenges but also aim to dismantle systemic inequalities, which perpetuate gender- and race-based disparities. Neha dreams of dedicating her efforts towards building a more just and equitable society through advocating for policy frameworks that embrace an intersectional lens.