Erica Newton Fessia
Vice President, Global Field Operations, FIRST^®

Erica Newton Fessia joined FIRST in 2018 as Vice President of Global Field Operations. In her role, Erica’s primary mission is working with the overall FIRST community to develop and evolve our vision for the implementation for sustainable, coherent, growth-oriented local FIRST ecosystems, where kids throughout the world have access to a solid progression of FIRST programs.

Erica brings a strong professional and leadership background to FIRST in social entrepreneurship, community engagement, and human-resource management, spanning both the for-profit and not-for-profit worlds. Prior to joining FIRST, Erica most recently served as Director of Community Engagement for Qualcomm, a FIRST Strategic Partner, where she had been instrumental in supporting and growing Qualcomm’s relationship with FIRST. She served on the FIRST Executive Advisory Board (EAB) for the last two years in the role.

In addition to a successful, long-time career with Qualcomm and running her own HR consultancy, in 2007 Erica launched a non-profit organization, South Bay Children’s Museum, to pursue her passion for creating memorable learning experiences in the areas of math, science, and art for children in her community. Hence, FIRST fits beautifully with Erica’s long-time interests and passions.