As partner and co-owner of Liberty Solutions Group, Jess Tharpe brings over two decades of leadership experience, and another decade of navigating state government. She served as the Assistant Secretary for Community Services, Assistant Secretary for Child and Family Well-Being, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Child Welfare, and Director of Innovation and Project Management at the Florida Department of Children and Families.
In these roles, she led several strategic initiatives to enhance the customer experience including the launch of Family Navigation, Florida’s Foster Information Center, Father First, and the Office of Continuing Care. Additionally, she successfully oversaw 3,000+ team members and a $1.3 billion dollar budget, negotiated multi-million dollar contracts, secured additional funding from the legislature for multiple projects, managed IT modernization initiatives, coordinated hurricane responses, reduced vacancies, and helped lower foster care entry by 24.4%.
Prior to working in state government, she served in various leadership roles within the nonprofit industry, higher education, and the private sector, where she led program development, contract and grant management, business development, operations, administration, and continuous quality improvement.
Jess is a former Junior League of Tallahassee President. She lives in Tallahassee with her husband and two children and is active in her church.