Claire De Leon

Claire is a communication strategist and trained public health educator. She is passionate about health equity and racial justice and has focused on both through her career, from managing communications to improve maternal health in California, to conducting community-based participatory research on what residents want from public housing. At Spitfire, Claire is a skilled strategist and tactician, developing compelling messages and campaigns that move audiences to action.

Claire leads work with clients focused on upstream systems change, including Meyer Memorial Trust, Power to Decide, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Birth Equity Collaborative. Prior to Spitfire, Claire acted as statewide communications director for a large, public university research initiative, where she developed a strategic communication plan and successfully launched the University of California, San Francisco Preterm Birth Initiative’s website, brand, mission, vision, and messaging platform arm in arm with an active community advisory board. If you want communications to be both current and lasting, you want Claire on your team.

Blending creative pedagogy and advocacy, Claire led a community-facing human-centered design sprint with IDEO.org on how to communicate about adverse birth outcomes through the lens of reproductive justice. Claire secured key earned media placement in elevating the issue of Black women’s disparate maternal mortality rates and adverse birth outcomes in the U.S. At the San Francisco State University (SFSU) Health Equity Institute, she conducted research on emerging media narratives over the Zika epidemic with the international Zika Social Science Network.