Brenda Solorzano

A self-proclaimed change maker, Brenda Solórzano is known as a leader focused on continual learning while making time to play and enjoy life. Solórzano is the President and CEO of The California Endowment. She was appointed to the position in 2024. This is a return for Brenda, after working at the Endowment early in her philanthropic career.

Brenda began her career in advocacy circles and has continued to ensure community voice remains at the center of her philanthropic work. She is a nationally recognized leader in trust-based philanthropy, a values-driven approach that advances equity, shifts power, and builds mutually accountable relationships between funders and nonprofits. As a founding member of the movement, Brenda understands that democratizing philanthropy, putting the community at the center, and building trusted partnerships and relationships are critical to ensuring positive and healthy change.

After immigrating to the United States from Guatemala as a baby, Brenda was raised in San Francisco. She calls San Francisco home and lived in California for nearly 50 years before moving to Montana to be the founding CEO of Headwaters Foundation.

Brenda comes to the Endowment from Headwaters. During her tenure at Headwaters, Brenda built an institution for the community, by the community, from the ground up. Leading with a lens of health equity and trust-based philanthropy, she reimagined and reinvented philanthropic practices, changed systems and policies to advance better health outcomes, and built a network of trusted partnerships across the state.

In her career, Brenda has also held positions at the Blue Shield of California Foundation and the California Healthcare Foundation. Brenda has a bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in political science from the University of San Francisco and a Juris Doctorate from Whittier Law School in Southern California.

Brenda is married to Randall Caudle, an immigration attorney, and she has two college-aged children, Alina and Kian. Brenda is currently based in L.A. with her husband and their two pups.