MEET KEVIN GILLIS
By Duffy Jennings, Valley Vision Editor
Kevin Gillis may not have had Robert Frost in mind when he passed up Notre Dame for UC Santa Cruz back in 1981 but in his case, the trip from L.A. up the California coast rather than a cross-country matriculation to South Bend was certainly the road less traveled. And for him, it has made all the difference indeed.
Gillis, now a Senior Vice-President and Market Executive with Bank of America and a member of the Joint Venture board, has made a habit of following his heart and his passion for public policy and community service, even when they took him in unexpected directions.
“I was accepted to three schools – Notre Dame, Dartmouth and Santa Cruz,” he says. His father went to Notre Dame, his parents met in South Bend and Kevin had gone there during high school for some classes and stayed in the dorms.
“I have four older sisters but at the time Notre Dame still wasn’t coed, so as the only son I always thought that’s where I would end up going.
“But there was something different about Santa Cruz, a cultural ethos that appealed to me. I had a social viewpoint that was different from my classmates in high school.”
Today Gillis brings that same viewpoint and commitment to Joint Venture as the board champion for the Silicon Valley Economic Development Alliance (SVEDA).
“I’m a huge believer in bringing people together, like-minded business and government people with ideas about public issues,” he says. “I think public policy matters. I like the way Joint Venture uses the term ‘convene’ as a first step. It all starts with people coming together.”
Gillis said his first exposure to Joint Venture was at the State of the Valley conference in 2007, seated with colleagues at the Bank of America company table. “I already knew about the Index, but I didn’t know who produced it. As a banker, I used it often with clients. I love stats and data. Sitting there, I starting thinking what could the bank do, what could I do, to be more involved?”
Gillis says the Joint Venture staff and consultants are the “secret sauce” to its success.
Convening the right people to do the research around a problem, with their credibility and expertise, is what makes it work. They don’t try to create something new, but rather use existing institutions like the school districts or city economic offices. They just use existing resources and expertise. It’s the right model for getting things done.
Raquel Gonzalez, Silicon Valley Market President for Bank of America who has worked with Gillis since he joined the bank in 2003 , says Gillis’ is a “thought leader.”
“Kevin is a collaborator. He knows how to connect the dots,” she says. “He has a great personality, a good perspective and a good sense of humor that all work well in bringing parties together.
“We support him in his involvement with Joint Venture because their goals in Silicon Valley align with ours. Whether it’s health care, human services, education or other areas in the community where we want to make the greatest impact, no one organization can do it individually.”
Gillis had an early itch to explore, learn and be independent. He spent his senior year of high school living and studying in France and traveling through Europe, a departure that most kids who choose to spend a year of their education abroad wait for until they are in college.
At Santa Cruz, he served as student body president in his junior year and returned to France for his senior year, studying at the University of Pau.
Gillis graduated from Santa Cruz in 1987 with a degree in political philosophy, which led him to an internship in the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs. It is a full-time, nine-month experiential leadership-training program that prepares diverse, intelligent and committed individuals for effective and ethical leadership in the public affairs arena.
After a rigorous examination process, he was accepted to the highly competitive program (nationally, only 48 are chosen each year). Fellows serve intensive assignments in government, business, electoral politics, organized labor, media and nonprofit environments.
“It was a great experience for me,” Gillis recalls. “I spent five years running various political campaigns and raising money for nonprofits. I am especially proud of managing the AIDS Walk in San Francisco for three years.”
Candidates whose campaigns he worked on included Michael Dukakis in his 1988 presidential bid, Alameda County Supervisor Warren Widener and various Assembly, mayoral and city council candidates.
Following his political career, Gillis entered the MBA program at the University of San Francisco, 
where he cultivated his interest in financial management. With his MBA in hand, he spent time as a municipal bond underwriter in San Francisco before moving to New York. He landed a job with a Canadian bank, Toronto Dominion, where he spent four years in corporate finance before heeding the urge to return to California in 2000.
Gillis joined the Bank of America as a client manager covering technology companies and upper middle market clients in Silicon Valley. In his current role, he supervises twelve client managers serving lower middle market clients (under $75 million in annual revenue) in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties and the Fremont area of Alameda County.
Kevin was born in Los Angeles in 1963 to James and Jane Gillis, who now reside in Rossmoor. His father was a minor league baseball player and later worked as an FBI agent and in other government jobs before moving into radio, eventually running his own successful broadcasting ad sales business.
While working in New York in 2000, Kevin met his wife, Anne Sculley, then a filmmaker who now teaches at the same St. Cecilia’s Catholic School in San Francisco where their two daughters, Eleanor, 8, and Ruby, 5 are enrolled.
“We knew we wanted to live in San Francisco,” says Gillis, who commutes to his office in Palo Alto or to San Jose for business meetings. “Even though I work in Silicon Valley, we like big cities and the cultural environment if offers for us and the kids – museums, concerts, parks.”
Leisure time is precious, but Gillis spends as much of it with his family as he can while also finding time to hike, fly fish, go to Oakland A’s games and even take the field on the same San Francisco softball team he has played with for the past twenty years.
Today, the road most traveled for Kevin Gillis is the railroad – the Caltrain route he rides regularly up and down the Peninsula.
Perhaps his life might have turned out quite differently had he gone to Notre Dame, but he nevertheless brings the Fighting Irish spirit to serving the Silicon Valley community.