CHOC’s Jena Jensen embodies resilience as she chairs OC Business Council’s board

Her husband Jeff would want her to go on.

That much Jena Jensen knew. Go on even when “you don’t feel like yourself, when everything makes you cry,” she says. “Oh, we could talk for days and days about all the waves of misery that hit you.”

In 2020, when hundreds of thousands were dying, in a year when millions were suffering alone, Jensen, chief government relations officer for CHOC Children’s, was at the forefront of coordinating the hospital’s efforts to keep children safe during the pandemic. She was also gearing up to take the reins as chair of the Orange County Business Council in 2021 – in the wake of what analysts say has been the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Even before what happened, happened, there in the Jensen home that December morning – just a week before Christmas – the CEO of the business council, Lucy Dunn, had worried that, given the daily pressures of Jensen’s job during the battle with COVID, she might want to wait a year or so before assuming the demanding and very public job of board chair.

“But no. Not Jena,” says Dunn. “She was looking forward to the role; she knew we had to manage her time as a volunteer/servant leader at OCBC with her duties at CHOC, and even when offered a pass, she said, ‘I want the job.’ God love her.”

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