Suzanne Ambrose, Executive Officer

Suzanne M. Ambrose was appointed by the five-member State Personnel Board as Executive Officer in May 2007.

Prior to her appointment as Executive Officer, Ms. Ambrose was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to serve as Director of the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) in August 2004.

Ms. Ambrose has been an attorney practicing primarily in the area of civil rights enforcement for the State of California since 1988, when she joined the DFEH as a Staff Attorney in the Sacramento Legal Office.  In 1994, she was appointed Assistant Chief Counsel and in 1997 became the Department’s Chief Counsel.  She joined the Attorney General’s Office in 2000 as a Deputy Attorney General in the Civil Rights Enforcement Section representing the DFEH and the Fair Employment and Housing Commission (FEHC) in matters referred to the Attorney General.  In 2002, Ms. Ambrose was appointed the Supervising Deputy Attorney General in the Civil Rights Enforcement Section of the Attorney General’s Office.

Ms. Ambrose briefly practiced criminal law from 1991 to 1993 as a Deputy Attorney General in the Criminal Appeals, Writs and Trials section of the California Attorney General’s Office.

She began her academic training at the University of California, Berkeley where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Sociology in 1984.  She interned with the DFEH as a law clerk while attending the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, where she earned her Juris Doctor degree in 1987.

Ms. Ambrose has served on the Executive Committee of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar since 2006.  She is also on the Board of Directors of Cooperative Personnel Services, a joint powers agency established for the purpose of providing modern human resource and related management services for the common benefit of the State and local government agencies.