Kriztina Palone

Kriztina Palone joined the San Francisco office of the James Irvine Foundation as a Senior Program Officer in August 2022, focusing on the Better Careers initiative’s Public Sector Practice Change (PSPC) grantmaking portfolio. With over a decade of experience in local government, including ten years in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office and seven plus years with the City of Sacramento, Kriztina has been instrumental in addressing racial disparities and advancing social and economic justice through the public workforce development system. Her work has particularly emphasized improving access to resources for marginalized communities.

Before joining the Foundation, Kriztina served as the City of Sacramento’s first Workforce Development Manager in the Office of Innovation + Economic Development (OIED). In this role, she led various workforce development initiatives aimed at meeting the needs of vulnerable communities, creating career pathways in high-demand industries, and aligning efforts within Sacramento’s workforce development ecosystem.

One of her notable achievements was co-creating the workforce development framework for the City of Sacramento’s $15M Federal ARPA allocation for workforce services and was City-council approved to implement a comprehensive workforce development strategy, concentrating on the most marginalized communities and neighborhoods throughout Sacramento.

A native of Sacramento, CA, Kriztina holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from San Francisco State University. She is a current member of the CA Junior League, Oakland-East Bay (JLOEB) chapter and a new member of KALW Public Radio in San Francisco.