Jessie J. Knight Jr.

Jessie J. Knight Jr. is a trustee at Hudson Institute.

Mr. Knight is also CEO and managing director of Knight Angels, a private equity fund devoted to anonymous philanthropy. He retired as Sempra Energy’s executive vice president of external affairs, chief sustainability officer, and chairman of two of its subsidiaries, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and Southern California Gas Company. From 2010 to 2014 he was chief executive officer of SDG&E.

From 1999 to 2006, he was president and CEO of the 2,800-member San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, representing over 3,000 Southern California businesses.

From 1993 to 1999, Mr. Knight served as commissioner for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), appointed by Governor Pete Wilson and unanimously ratified by the full California Senate. This constitutional agency has regulatory oversight for the telecommunications, railroad safety, transportation, water, electricity, and natural gas industries of the state, and the oversight of the nuclear power facilities and the state’s decommissioning funds. While serving in this challenging regulatory role, he was nationally recognized as a leading regulatory voice to deregulate the telecommunications and energy industries to create competitive markets. To this day, he has been an ardent spokesperson and advocate for the elevation of the nation’s energy policies to embrace free market principles in any governmental oversight.

Prior to his gubernatorial appointment as a CPUC commissioner, Mr. Knight was employed as executive vice president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, responsible for international programs, economic development and business development for the 2,100 businesses represented by the organization.

From 1985 through 1992, Mr. Knight was vice president of marketing for the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner newspapers, overseeing business-to-business marketing, consumer product marketing, strategic planning, and consumer research.

Mr. Knight began his corporate career in 1975 with Castle & Cooke Foods, where he worked for 10 years in both domestic and international operations. Beginning as a division financial analyst for the banana operations in Honduras, Central America, he was later promoted to senior marketing analyst for Dole’s Coca-Cola franchise and its Salva Vida beer brand under Dole’s subsidiary, Cerveceria Hondureña, in Honduras. He ended his 10-year Dole Foods career as marketing director–North America, for all of Dole’s US and Canadian canned and juice retail grocery product divisions.

In addition to his duties as a trustee of the Hudson Institute, he is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is the chairman of the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego, California. In 2024, after 10 years of service, he retired from the board and the executive committee of the US Chamber of Commerce. During the decade of Chamber service, he has served on the US Chamber’s National Security Task Force Committee, the Energy Policy Council, and the US/Mexico CEO Council. He was one of the founding members of the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles at UCLA. He presently is a trustee of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Mr. Knight is a graduate of Saint Louis University, a fellow of the University of Madrid, and holds an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the San Diego State University Fowler School of Business (2021), and an honorary doctorate of commerce from Saint Louis University-Madrid (2022), where he presently serves as a trustee of St. Louis University. He is an officer in His Majesty King Charles III’s Order of St. John.