Dena Shupe

Dena is the Director of Communications and Assistant to the City Auditor. In these dual roles she effectively manages all communications, community engagement, administrative, financial, and operational activities on behalf of the City Auditor, including managing staff, overseeing projects, editing reports and maintaining critical intergovernmental and key stakeholder relationships.

She brings over 20 years of administrative and management experience to the City of Oakland including two years at a prominent Santa Barbara law firm and three years at one of the Bay Area’s top criminal defense law firms. Passionate about the environment, equity and inclusion, Dena also worked for as a Program Coordinator for the University of Berkeley’s Workshop on Environmental Politics and served on the Board of Trustees for to the Agape Foundation Fund for Nonviolent Social Change in San Francisco.

She has a Master of Public Policy degree from Mills College with an academic focus on increasing community participation in policymaking, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on international mediation.