California First Partner and documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom will conclude her time in state office in January 2027, when Gov. Gavin Newsom's final term ends after eight years. Looking back, she said she takes pride in having refused to stand down on pay equity and other issues that plague women, despite the criticism she has collected along the way.

“I’m particularly proud of the work that we’ve done in terms of women’s wealth and closing the women’s wealth gap,” Siebel Newsom said Tuesday at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Santa Barbara, Calif., in conversation with Ellie Austin, the host of Fortune Daily and editorial director of Most Powerful Women.

Asked what metrics she wanted her legacy as first partner to be judged on, Siebel Newsom started with pay. California has “the strongest equal pay laws in the nation,” she said, and “hundreds of companies have signed on to our equal pay pledge.” She launched #EqualPayCA, a statewide campaign aimed at closing the gender pay gap, in 2019.

“But that wasn’t enough, which is why we turned to women’s wealth,” she said.

Siebel Newsom pointed to the financial literacy requirement coming to California high schools beginning with the 2030-31 graduating class—a timeline that extends well beyond her January 2027 departure from state office. She also cited CalKids, a savings program she said was launched before Trump Accounts to incentivize families to invest in their children’s futures. She further highlighted expanded access to capital for female entrepreneurs and broader access to the governor himself—an issue she noticed early on that prompted her to work on making those circles bigger.

For Siebel Newsom, the case is economic.

“Women anchor families, communities, and now, as you all know, the economy,” she said. “One of the reasons we’ve really invested in California for all women … is because we know that if women are not able to thrive, how can their families, their communities, and the economy thrive?”

That focus on families runs through her other work. She said investments in universal pre-K, after-school programs, summer school and school meals were meant “to mitigate costs and stress to families in California,” and have saved them thousands of dollars per year.

“[I’m a] first partner because I wanted to be a partner to California’s women, children, and families,” she said.

Siebel Newsom took the title “first partner” instead of “first lady” to signal inclusivity—recognizing that California will one day have a woman or LGBTQ+ governor—and to emphasize the value of partnership in government, according to the governor’s office.

She has also worked to change who gets heard in state government by launching the California Women’s Wealth Advisory Council in October 2025.

“I was tired of going into rooms where the majority of the men with access, the majority of the people with access to my husband were men, and a few women,” she said. “I wanted to expand exposure to government.”

A graduate of Stanford University and Stanford’s business school, Siebel Newsom is a documentary filmmaker whose work includes Miss Representation, The Mask You Live In and The Great American Lie. Her latest film, Miss Representation: Rise Up, expands on the original by examining the backlash against women’s progress and the technology used to and silence women. It premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June, and she said it will premiere in New York City on Oct. 22.

She and the governor have four children.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.