Blake Johnson

Chief Strategy Officer, Child Action

This story is part of our July 2025 Young Professionals issue, photographed at Bradford Animal Shelter. To learn more about adopting at Bradford, click here.

Blake Johnson once told himself he wouldn’t follow his mother’s career path. She’d been an educator — both a teacher and a principal— and while he respected her work, he wouldn’t pursue the same trajectory.

“I felt like I would be pigeonholed if I did that,” he says. “That was me being naïve.”

Johnson, 37, eventually changed his mind, setting off on a course that ultimately led him to his current role as chief strategy officer at Child Action, a nonprofit focused on increasing access to high-quality childcare in the Sacramento region.

He joined Child Action following an eye-opening experience as a parent. Johnson and his wife Nastassja had recently welcomed their first child, a son. They both worked downtown at the time and had found a nearby childcare center that seemed convenient.

Not so fast, the school’s administration informed the couple. “They said, ‘You should have probably gotten on the waitlist before you wanted to conceive,” says Johnson, who in addition to his son, now 5, also has a 2-year-old daughter. “I had no clue how expensive childcare was. I had no clue how hard it was to navigate.”

Whatever the impetus, Johnson says he’s always forged a “purpose-driven life.” He credits his parents, whom he says raised him to be of service to others, as well as his years at Kennedy High School, as key to his work philosophy.

At Kennedy, he was part of the school’s inaugural Program in America and California Explorations (PACE) cohort, a college preparation program that emphasizes advanced placement courses. It was post-9/11, and the United Nations was investigating the validity of the United States government’s actions leading to the war in Iraq.

“I’m adamant about tying childcare to economic development and regional competitiveness.”

The program sparked a sense of intention in Johnson, leading to a decision to pursue a career in politics or law. Following a stint studying at Morehouse College in Atlanta, he returned home to attend Sacramento State. In 2011, after graduating with a bachelor of arts in political science and government, Johnson was hired as an assistant to then-State Controller John Chiang. In 2014, when Chiang was elected state treasurer, Johnson stayed on, moving through the ranks from special assistant to legislative analyst.

That experience proved formative, he says.

“The way the treasurer’s office is built, it’s like a mini governor’s office,” Johnson says. “They deal with public financing, they deal with affordable housing, they have college scholarship programs, they have retirement security. I got to try all these different policy areas, I thought, ‘OK, that’s going to be my track.’”

The position eventually led him to work as a legislative representative with the California Department of Education. There, in addition to leading various initiatives, Johnson headed up the Black Student Achievement Task Force.

“The job empowered me and showed me what I was capable of,” Johnson says.

In 2024, Johnson joined Child Action, where he oversees government affairs, communications, fundraising and human resources. Among his chief goals: to boost the nonprofit’s impact by expanding its advocacy presence at state and federal levels as a means to secure additional funding and policy support for childcare.

The work is critical for Californians, he says. “The way childcare is currently funded, if we send out every single dollar, only one in nine children in California have access to affordable childcare,” he says. “That makes no sense when we’re the fourth largest economy.”

As part of his mission, Johnson also serves on the Greater Sacramento Economic Council’s Competitiveness Council, which provides strategic direction to GSEC’s board of directors to advance the region’s competitive position in various areas, including entrepreneurship and branding. It’s part of his bigger vision, he says.

“I’m adamant,” he says, “about tying childcare to economic development and regional competitiveness.”

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