Liz Simons

Simons has promoted a number of left-of-center education policies. Simons also founded Stretch to Kindergarten, an early childhood education program. Simons is the chair of the Heising-Simons Foundation, an organization she formed with her husband in 2007 that supports a variety of left-of-center environmentalist, education, and social policy causes. ¹

Early Life

Liz Simons was born to Barbara and James Simons. Simons attended the University of California, Berkeley where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She also earned a master’s in education from Stanford University. ²

Career

Simons previously worked in English as a Second Language (ESL) and Spanish-bilingual classrooms as a teacher. She also founded Stretch to Kindergarten, an early childhood education program focused on kindergarten readiness. ²

Simons sits on the advisory boards of a number of organizations, including the Marshall Project, Math for America, Too Small to Fail, Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. Simons is also a board member at the Learning Policy Institute, a left-leaning education policy organization, and at the Foundation for a Just Society, a pro-LGBT grantmaking foundation created by Simons’ sibling, Audrey Cappell. ²

In 2007, Simons and her husband Mark Heising co-founded the Heising-Simons Foundation, an organization that supports a variety of left-leaning causes. ¹ Simons sits as the chair of the Foundation’s board, while her husband and daughter, Caitlin Heising, sit as vice chairs. ² The Foundation has awarded more than $618 million since its founding, awarding more than $127 million in grants in 2020 alone. ³

In 2016, Simons and her husband joined the Giving Pledge, promising to donate a majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes before their deaths. ⁴

Political Activity

Simons supports a variety of left-of-center political candidates and causes. In 2018, Simons and her husband hosted a luncheon benefit at their home in Atherton, California for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Featuring former President Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the event had ticket prices starting at $10,000 per person and reaching as high as $237,300. ⁵ The event raised about $2.5 million for the DCCC. ⁶

During the 2018 elections, Simons supported Florida’s Amendment 4, a ballot measure that reinstated voting privileges for convicted felons. Simons joined the children and wife of billionaire left-progressive donor David Bonderman in supporting the out-of-state ballot measure. Simons and her father, James Simons, gave a combined $1 million to support the amendment. ⁷

In 2020, Simons supported George Gascon, an anti-death penalty left-wing Democratic candidate for Los Angeles County District Attorney. ⁸ Simons, who previously supported various left-of-center criminal justice and anti-death penalty efforts, contributed $585,000 to Gascon’s campaign. ^{9 8}

Simons has supported a number of Democratic candidates and committees during recent elections. In 2020, Simons gave $200,000 to the House Majority PAC and also contributed $10,000 each to the Mississippi Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of New Mexico, and the Utah State Democratic Committee. ¹⁰ In 2019, she donated over $100,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). During the 2016 elections, Simons donated $50,000 to the Hillary Clinton-aligned Hillary Action Fund. ¹¹ Since 2016, Simons has contributed over $1 million to the House Majority PAC. ¹²

According to data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Simons and her husband, Mark Heising, contributed $350,000 to the Biden Victory Fund Super PAC  in 2023. ¹³ In September 2023, the couple held a private fundraiser for president Joe Biden at their Bay Area home in Atherton, CA, for which tickets cost between $5,000 and $100,000. ¹⁴ According to Open Secrets, their foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, provided over $5.5 million in grants towards supporting campaigns for Democratic candidates and causes in fiscal year 2020. ¹⁵

In August 2025, Simons donated $250,000 to New Yorkers for Lower Costs, a super PAC supporting the campaign of NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. ¹⁶

In 2025, Simons made a $250,000 contribution to New Yorkers for Lower Costs, a super PAC supporting the New York City mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani. She has also been noted for her role in directing the Heising-Simons Foundation’s support for educational initiatives that integrate equity and social justice themes into mathematics instruction. ¹⁷

Personal Life

Simons is the daughter of James Simons, a retired hedge fund billionaire, philanthropist, and left-wing mega-donor. Simons co-founded Renaissance Technologies, a quantitative trading investment management company. Simons was in her early thirties when her father and stepmother founded the Simons Foundation in 1994. Simons gave each of his children a few thousand dollars to give to philanthropies of their choice through the foundation, and Simons used her funds to support educational charities and the Nature Conservancy. ¹⁸

Simons is married to Mark Heising, the founder of private market investment firm Medley Partners. She met Heising in 1979 while they were both studying at the University of California,  . ³ Before founding Medley Partners, Heising was the founder of a company that designed and licensed cryptographic integrated circuits. Heising sits on the board of Renaissance Technologies, his father-in-law’s company, and is also the chair of the left-of-center Environmental Defense Fund. ¹⁹

Simons’ daughter, Caitlin Heising, is the vice chair of the Heising-Simons Foundation. She is a founding member of the Maverick Collective, a left-of-center women’s-interests organization. ²⁰