Pedro Villegas

Pedro Villegas is an accomplished external affair professional with 25 years of experience in corporate philanthropy, government advocacy, energy policy, and international relations.

A seventeen-year veteran of the Sempra Energy companies, Pedro led community relations for the San Diego Gas & Electric Company and championed philanthropic partnerships with over five hundred diverse nonprofit and community-based organizations. He has also led the company’s local government advocacy team in San Diego, served as SDG&E and the Southern California Gas Company’s state regulatory advocate, and represented the Sempra companies in several western states.

Pedro has held leadership positions in the California State Assembly, including Deputy Director of the Speaker’s Office of International Relations and Protocol, Principal Consultant to the Assembly Committee on Jobs, the Economy, and Economic Development, and Senior Consultant to the Assembly Select Committee on California-Mexico Affairs. He is a former Pacific Council on International Policy globalization research coordinator, Visiting Research Fellow of the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), and Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow of the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, also at UC San Diego.

Pedro serves on several volunteer nonprofit boards and committees, including those of RISE San Diego, the National Conflict Resolution Center, the Downtown San Diego Partnership, the ComicCon Museum, and the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. He earned a Master of Pacific International Affairs degree from the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government and International Relations from the University of Notre Dame.