Gil Durán, Former Press Secretary to Governor Jerry Brown, Joins Our San Francisco Team

Fenton has named Gil Durán Senior Vice President for Media, based at its San Francisco office. Gil, who began his career as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, spent the past decade as a strategist and media advisor for California’s top elected leaders. He served as Press Secretary to Governor Jerry Brown twice – first at Oakland City Hall (2003-2007), then in Sacramento (2011-2013). He also worked as Communications Director for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Press Secretary to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa and Senior Advisor/Communications Director to California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris.

During 10 years in politics, Gil worked as a chief spokesman, strategist and speechwriter on a wide range of issues. He has played a role in some of California’s most high profile public interest campaigns, including:

• California’s historic Proposition 30, which protected public education funding and fixed the state budget
• Marriage Equality and efforts to defeat Proposition 8
• The public rollout of California High-Speed Rail’s revised business plan
• Promoting California’s economic resurgence under Governor Brown while pushing back against right-wing falsehoods

At Fenton, Gil will work on a variety of public interest projects based at our California offices, including for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Open Society Institute, The Blue Shield of California Foundation, The California Endowment, the California Wellness Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and others. He will also work on firm-wide projects including those focused on climate change, young men of color, and the firm’s growing corporate sustainability and social responsibility efforts.

“Usually, when people of Gil’s stature leave politics, they seek only to cash-out to the highest bidder, and never mind values or social impact,” commented CEO David Fenton. “We are so lucky that Gil wants to continue serving the public good.”