Jessica Bailey

Jessica Bailey is President and CEO of Nuveen Green Capital (NGC), a leading provider of sustainable commercial real estate finance.

Jessica co-founded Greenworks Lending, one of the largest providers of Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) financing in the country. Utilizing a state-enabled policy that Jessica helped to develop in 2010, C-PACE financing has become a mainstream financing tool for clean energy upgrades in commercial real estate and sustainable new construction. As CEO of Greenworks Lending, Jessica grew the company into a national lending platform operating in over 30 states, raised and deployed over a billion dollars in debt and equity, and built a team of nearly 100 professionals. Through its nationwide distribution and originations platform, it has experienced double-digit annual growth since founding. In 2021, she led Greenworks to a successful acquisition by Nuveen; the platform has since been rebranded to Nuveen Green Capital. From 2012 to 2014, Jessica was with the Connecticut Green Bank, where she designed and led the award-winning C-PACE program for the state. From 2004 to 2012, Jessica worked at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a foundation based in New York.

In 2024, Jessica was recognized as a “Notable Leader in Sustainability” by Crain’s New York, and was included on Commercial Observer’s Power 50 Finance List. She was also honored as a GlobeSt. “Woman of Influence” in 2023, and she and NGC co-founder, Ali Cooley, were jointly recognized as “CRE’s Best Bosses” by GlobeSt. in 2023, as well as “50 Most Important Figures of Commercial Real Estate Finance” by Commercial Observer in 2022. Jessica was named an Ernst and Young (EY) Entrepreneurial Winning Woman in 2019, and Connecticut Magazine included her in their “40 under 40” list in 2019. She was also named a “Champion of Change” for solar deployment by the White House in 2014.

Jessica graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s degree from Yale University.