{"id":466331,"date":"2026-09-17T03:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T03:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/466331\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T03:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T03:44:09","slug":"2026-change-maker-honoree-zaire-harris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/466331\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Change Maker honoree: Zaire Harris"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Sacramento Bee and Nehemiah Leaders Programs are celebrating this year’s 60 Change Makers. Join them at our gala at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13 at the Grand Sheraton in downtown Sacramento. Buy tickets at sacramentochangemakers.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Growing up in Rohnert Park, Zaire Harris joined \u201cevery girls\u2019 math and science program you could imagine,\u201d on the belief that one day she\u2019d become a veterinarian.<\/p>\n

But in her free time, she was preoccupied with civics.<\/p>\n

Her mother joked that she started debating as a newborn. Harris said she pursued leadership positions \u201canytime there was something I could run for,\u201d and became her school\u2019s first Black student body president. In her first week at Spelman College in Atlanta, one of Harris\u2019 teachers implored her to switch from medicine to a political science track.<\/p>\n

Harris took that advice and never looked back, and has pursued work in policy and advocacy in the years since.<\/p>\n

Harris was in Atlanta during Stacey Abrams\u2019 campaign for governor and she said she saw \u201cwhat voter suppression looked like in real time.\u201d She went on to a fellowship working for the California Senate\u2019s majority leader at the time, Robert Hertzberg. Then at Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, she worked on a slate of policy recommendations in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization, the case that overturned a constitutional right to abortion.<\/p>\n

After four years with Planned Parenthood, Harris was hired as a culture and inclusion program manager for Golden One Credit Union, where she oversees the credit union\u2019s seven employee resource groups, among other things.<\/p>\n

\"Zaire Zaire Harris, Golden One Credit Union culture and inclusion program manager, poses for a portrait on Thursday, July 30, 2026. She is a 2026 Change Maker. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

She helped revamp the groups\u2019 heritage months. During Black History Month, speakers came to Golden One Credit Union to speak about streetwear culture, Black fraternities and sororities, and members of the Wiltown Riders<\/a> spoke about the history of Black cowboys.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s rewarding, Harris said, to help people feel comfortable bringing their \u201cfull selves\u201d to work. And in this day and age, when money is tight, workers want to feel that they \u2014 and their efforts \u2014 are valued.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to feel like it\u2019s worth it. You want to be seen and humanized,\u201d Harris said. \u201cI think that\u2019s what people need right now. I think people are going through a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Annika Merrilees<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Annika Merrilees is a business reporter for The Sacramento Bee. She previously spent five years covering business and healthcare for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sacramento Bee and Nehemiah Leaders Programs are celebrating this year’s 60 Change Makers. Join them at our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-466331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}