Rich Peterson is a trusted Bay Area political and regulatory strategist with nearly three decades of leadership experience in roles spanning business, industry associations, non-profits, and government. He is regarded as a preeminent “troubleshooter” for his broad professional expertise and has cultivated meaningful relationships with an expansive roster of local, state and federal elected leaders, appointed commissioners and staffers, as well as business, community and nonprofit leaders.

He has served in important public oversight and fiduciary roles for the City and County of San Francisco as president of two key commissions, and on behalf of numerous private nonprofits as a director. His counsel is routinely sought by industry-leading companies – clients like AT&T, BMO, Genentech, Goldman Sachs, Grocery Outlet, Hearst, Hines, Jacobs, Pacific Maritime Association, Prologis, Republic Services, and Sierra Pacific Industries – that trust his expert guidance to successfully navigate the Bay Area’s (& State’s) complex political and regulatory landscape.

Rich served as Mayor Gavin Newsom’s appointed trustee to the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS), his appointed commissioner to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) – serving as President of both, and a Finance Committee Chair for both mayoral campaigns, as well as president of his Inaugural Committee following his reelection in 2007. Rich has also been acknowledged as one of the late Mayor Ed Lee’s largest fundraisers, and he was one of Governor Gavin Newsom’s leading fundraisers in his victorious state campaigns. Rich also served at the late Mayor Lee’s request as Chairman of the City Hall Centennial celebration attended by 35,000 San Franciscans, and funded privately with several million dollars which he raised, personally.

Rich has been an active volunteer over the last two decades for an array of non-profit causes. Of particular note are his efforts on behalf of Town School for Boys, where he serves as a trustee; Cypress Lawn Cemetery Association – northern California’s largest cemetery and funeral home operation – where he serves as Chairman of the Board; The Guardsmen, for which he formerly served as a director; SPUR, where he served as a director for many years; Francisco Park Conservancy, to which he has provided pro-bono advocacy and fundraising expertise for nearly a decade; At the Crossroads, where he sits on the Capital Campaign Advisory Board and assists with fundraising; and UCSF’s Pediatric Epilepsy Center for which he has also raised significant private funding.

Rich received his B.S. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley, has two children in college, and lives in the Presidio in San Francisco.