Jiesi Zhao
Director, Center for Entrepreneurship & Free Enterprise, Young America’s Foundation
Jiesi holds a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, where she practiced as a student attorney at the Law School’s Entrepreneurship Clinic, which helps student and former-student entrepreneurs get off the ground and successfully manage legal issues that arise for new entities.
Prior to law school, Jiesi was a Sarah T. Hermann intern scholar at Young America’s Foundation. Throughout this time, Jiesi organized and hosted public policy events and conferences on Capitol Hill, spoke on behalf of the Foundation at events including CPAC, wrote and edited blog posts and columns for the Foundation website and various national publications, including National Review andHuman Events. Jiesi also aided the Foundation in recruiting students and in development work with Foundation supporters.
Jiesi also graduated cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in Legal Studies. As a student at Berkeley, Jiesi was president of the conservative group and hosted many Foundation events and speakers, including the 9/11: Never Forget Project and the commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 2009, Jiesi was selected to attend the Club 100 Reagan Ranch Retreat for top campus activists in Santa Barbara, California.
Jiesi has previously interned for Albrecht & Barney, Law Corporation, in Orange County, California. There, she assisted the firm’s partners in estate planning and gift tax law for high net worth clients. A significant portion of the firm’s practice is devoted to the representation of families in connection with planning for the succession of the family business. Jiesi thoroughly enjoyed honing her legal skills and working with these clients. Jiesi has also worked as a legal intern at the Atlantic Legal Foundation, a non-profit that represents conservative ideas to the US Supreme Court and other Federal courts.