The Office of the Governor said First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom hosted her fourth and final Gender Equity Summit on Oct. 30 and released Building Women’s Wealth in California: A Roadmap for Action, a set of recommendations to expand women’s access to capital and strengthen wealth-building programs for families.

The roadmap proposes a Golden State Fund led within the private sector to target high-performing companies in industries critical to California’s well-being; it also recommends increasing philanthropic donor-advised funds aimed at women, maintaining a statewide Resource Hub, creating an annual California Innovation Showcase to connect founders with investors, and making CalKIDS accounts easier to access for more families.

The release said the California Women’s Wealth Advisory Council developed the roadmap after a year of meetings with leaders in philanthropy, finance, and entrepreneurship; the council was established by the First Partner to identify actionable solutions to close the wealth gap.

Katherine Rice, partner at GingerBread Capital and co-chair of the California Women’s Wealth Advisory Council, said, “As an investor, I see so many talented women founders and fund managers who are underfunded. They’re not underperforming, they’re undervalued. What they need is capital behind them. I’m grateful to the First Partner and Governor who recognize that closing the wealth gap is one of California’s biggest economic opportunities. This roadmap give[s] us practical ways to achieve that goal.”

The release cites data from the California Chamber of Commerce that women own nearly 40% of businesses in California and contributed about $580 billion in revenue between 2019 and 2023; it also notes a projected national intergenerational wealth transfer of an estimated $84 trillion to $124 trillion over the next two decades.

The roadmap is a set of recommendations, not a state funding package, and the Golden State Fund is proposed as a private-sector initiative; the release did not say when or how the state would act on the recommendations.

The Office of the Governor also highlighted related state actions the First Partner has advanced, including the California Equal Pay Pledge from 2019, the Equal Pay Playbook, the Board Culture Playbook released with Stanford, and Assembly Bill 2927, which the release said will require a one-semester personal finance course in California public high schools beginning in the 2027–28 school year with completion required for the class of 2030–31.

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Gavin Newsom

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