Clarrissa Cabansagan named SVBC Executive Director
Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition’s new Executive Director, Clarrissa Cabansagan.
We’re delighted to announce that the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition’s Board of Directors has named Clarrissa Cabansagan as the new executive director. The action caps a national search, by reaching into SVBC’s own ranks to promote a highly regarded public policy, strategy and management leader with a strong vision for mobility equity.
In her new role, Clarrissa, formerly deputy director, will lead one of the nation’s largest bicycle coalitions. With a staff of 18 people and a budget of $1.7 million, SVBC advocates for bicycling across two counties, with 37 cities and entities, complex transportation systems, multiple languages and cultures, and demographics spanning some of the nation’s wealthiest neighborhoods to the very challenged.
“Professionalism and passion”
“She was selected based on her experience with the organization specifically, and generally within the larger transportation field as a seasoned bicycle and transportation justice advocate,” the board says in its announcement. “Her outright professionalism and passion for the mission of building healthier and more just communities by making bicycling safe and accessible made her the superior candidate.”
The months-long search involved staff, membership, major donors, and government and private industry partners, the board says. Among nationwide candidates, Clarrissa emerged as the shining choice. “We look forward to her smooth and successful move into the Executive Director role.”
Clarrissa replaces Shiloh Ballard, who in December announced her plans to depart, after eight years, to pursue personal interests. Shiloh formally hands off to Clarrissa at the 13th Annual Silicon Valley Bike Summit, in Mountain View on Aug. 24. She remains through that date to assist with transition.
Thought leadership and change agent
Shiloh cites Clarrissa’s experience as a thought leader in shaping government, academic and transit agency policy, and in guiding SVBC through a period of change and emergence from the pandemic recovery. And she’s delighted the search team looked far and wide but found gold right at home, within the SVBC and Bay Area family.
“I am so thrilled that we found Clarrissa to lead this organization,” says Shiloh. “She is uniquely suited to take the organization to the next level through the implementation of our recent strategic plan. That plan is rooted in her core values, namely, the power of everyday people, in particular those who have been sidelined and ignored, to come together to create positive change – what we in the bike movement call ‘pedal power.’“
With SVBC since 2021, Clarrissa has led strategy and the development of balanced and sustainable revenue growth, most recently as deputy director of strategy and development.
She previously held senior roles tackling a range of policy areas including tech-enabled mobility, bicycle and pedestrian planning, public transit, and affordable housing with TransForm, an advocacy organization on housing and transportation policy in the Bay Area and California. There she was instrumental in steering the organization to adopt a racial justice lens, and helping staff through multiple leadership transitions and reorganization.
In prior roles, she’s worked with Urban Habitat and Resource Development Associates in Oakland; the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); Los Angeles Bus Riders Union; and Google.
“My track record is in improving access to sustainable transportation options for vulnerable populations in the Bay Area,” as an advocate for bicycle and transportation justice, Clarrissa says.
Among her accomplishments:
Administered the Safe Routes to Transit Grant Program that funded over $60 million in bicycle/pedestrian improvements to transit throughout the Bay Area
Facilitated the policy direction and participation of five grassroots bicycle organizations for the nation’s first racial equity-focused bike plan, Let’s Bike Oakland
Led a coalition of bicycle advocates to push for regional investment in bicycle/micromobility infrastructure and programs
Managed Bike Share for All equity program design and community engagement for Lyft Baywheels with three bicycle coalitions and four community partners
Clarrissa lives in San Mateo County. She holds an MA in Urban Planning, Transportation Policy and Planning from UCLA, and a BA in Ethnic Studies, minor in City and Regional Planning, from the University of California, Berkeley.
A focus on removing barriers
Clarrissa says her own lived experience was formative. She witnessed many of the barriers people can face in life while growing up in a redlined, under-resourced neighborhood, and as a Filipina-American, a woman of color raised in diverse immigrant communities in Daly City and San Francisco.
She’s excited that the three large Bay Area bike coalitions – including Bike East Bay and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition – are now headed by people of color and that she continues a long tradition of female leadership at SVBC.
“Understanding firsthand these barriers is key in leading SVBC to work on removing them,” she says. The primary focus for SVBC is the access for all people to safe, equitable transportation that connects them to the people and places they need to thrive. “This perspective of reducing health and wealth disparities, promoting solutions that truly increase biking, walking, and transit use in auto-oriented communities, and tackling the housing crisis, is what I hope to reinforce as I help lead the bike movement.”
Clarrissa underscores her background building pilot programs with grassroots groups, proving them as models, advocating for new funding streams, and seeing them taken up as policy and industry standard. “Now I want to bring that to the bike movement.”