Jesslyn Katherine is a Political Consultant, Researcher, and Fundraiser, as well as, the CEO of Indonesia Patisserie School.
She recently ran as the first female Chinese-Indonesian candidate of Dayak descent with the Golkar Party, during Indonesia’s 2024 Provincial Legislature Election, representing North Jakarta. While running as a candidate, she created the first Campaign Fundraising App called FundRoots in Indonesia, to help elect credible, accountable, and transparent candidates to serve in Indonesia’s Provincial and National level.
Her political and non-profit experiences include working in leading U.S. Democratic fundraising platform, ActBlue; U.S. Political Action Committee, Tri-State Maxed-Out Womens PAC; Jewish advocacy organization, American Jewish Committee; and the Indonesian government, Coordinating Ministry of Maritime and Investment Affairs. She also has experience working in the academic field, where she assisted and collaborated with several NYC non-profit experts and professors to draft and finalize a series of policy proposals for NYU Wagners’ NYC 2025 project. She also helped Indonesia’s first political party public policy institution, Golkar Institute, to develop its online campaign education platform called TrainGolkar.
Her U.S. campaign experience started in 2015 when she became the first international student at Boston University to participate in Hillary-Kaine’s campaign on Campus and in New Hampshire. In 2020, she was asked by the New York For Biden’s Leadership Committee, to serve as an Organizing Associate for Biden-Harris 2020 New York and Westchester chapter. Due to her stellar volunteerism, she was asked by the same leadership, now New York For Harris, to become a field and digital organizer for the New York chapter in 2024.
Jesslyn earned a B.A. in Political Science from Boston University and a MPA-MA from New York University, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. During those years, she received several awards from U.S. Academic and Jewish institutions for her outstanding dedication and contribution to the community.
Jesslyn recently visited Sydney and returned to Kincoppal-Rose Bay to meet with her teachers from the Languages and Music Departments. It was wonderful to catch up with Jesslyn and learn about her career since leaving KRB.
Jesslyn now divides her time between Jakarta, New York and Boston.