Please join us in welcoming two experienced professionals in their respective fields to the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition team!

We’re thrilled to have Felicia Ward join our team, bringing a decade of strategic development and fundraising experience to help us achieve our strategic plan goals. She has a proven track record of securing millions in funding in past roles, and we are excited for her to develop a strategy that ensures the long-term fiscal health of the organization. Additionally, we are delighted to bring long-time community organizer and former urban planner Matt Jones on as SVBC’s new policy director. We are confident he is the right person to lead our organizers and volunteer advocates in this crucial moment of transition for the advocacy team.

They’re here to help advance our shared mission, of building healthy and just communities across San Mateo and Santa Clara counties by making bicycling safe and accessible for everyone. We are happy to call these folks our new biketivists!

Meet the full team at the Silicon Valley Bike Summit in South San Francisco on Aug. 29!

*Felicia Ward, Development Director*

With over a decade of experience partnering with corporate and non-profit organizations in New York and California, Felicia has worked on cross-functional teams to design and drive high-profile events, community-based programs, and advanced capital fundraising campaigns. Before joining the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, Felicia most recently served as Program Manager for Stanford University, helping to cultivate a more robust and diverse volunteer pipeline for the Board of Governors and Beyond the Farm Alumni Day of Service while generating innovative revenue channels for Stanford's celebrated Wine Program.
Before Stanford, Felicia raised funds for the San Mateo County Community Colleges District. During her time at the District, she helped raise over $1.5 million for first-generation Promise Program college students, closing the opportunity gap in education. Equity, inclusion, and fundraising work have been consistent themes throughout Felicia's career. As Assistant Director at Columbia Business School, she aided in establishing the School's inaugural Women's Circle, a diversity and equity-based leadership initiative to promote and inspire a lifelong supportive community for alumnae in business leadership.
Felicia also brings broad and deep experience as a strategic project manager, leading database systems, constructing budgets, and implementing community relations. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Business Management from Columbia University. In her spare time, Felicia is passionate about her collaborative work as a program advocate for her family's foundation, which focuses on instituting policy changes to protect the ecological integrity of California water sources, native plant species, and indigenous rights. She also serves as a program volunteer supporting Second Harvest of Silicon Valley's food distribution.

*Matt Jones, Policy Director*

Matt grew up in San Bruno, in a more auto-dependent neighborhood where the ability to drive was often a necessity to meet ones needs. It wasn't until he spent time in undergrad at UCSB and at Lund University in Sweden when he realized how much the built environment can dictate transportation choices and health outcomes.
Matt has an undergrad degree in political science with concentration in comparative environmental politics along with grad classes in urban planning. Matt has worked with cities in four different Bay Area counties on housing and transportation planning, with several regionally-focused environmental nonprofits, and on campaigns for local and statewide offices. He has been a longtime member of SVBC and has both served on and staffed BPACs. As a planner for his hometown, he helped adopt its first Walk and Bike Plan and secured $1.4 million in bicycle and pedestrian grants for the City.
In his free time, Matt enjoys spending time going to local music shows and museums, he loves karaoke, and he has visited 17 countries.

The 2024 Silicon Valley Bike Summit is on Aug. 29 in South San Francisco. It’s the region’s largest gathering of active transportation leaders and organizers from government, the private sector, non-profits, and the general public. Connect, learn — and meet us there!