LEAH LIZARONDO

Over 20-year track record of entrepreneurship and global product/brand leadership in social enterprise, technology and consumer products. Expertise in taking complex ideas to effectively message, mobilize and drive mass movement. Focused on climate action.

Leah is the CEO of founder of Food Rescue Hero and co-founder of 412 Food Rescue. The Food Rescue Hero platform has facilitated the recovery of over 80M pounds of food since 2016 from going to waste via technology that mobilizes over 25,000 drivers in 16 cities –food rescue heroes–the largest on-demand volunteer food transport network globally. This volunteer driver network performs at a 99% service level, higher than some commercial services.

The Food Rescue Hero technology platform is used by food recovery nonprofits in the US and Canada including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Vancouver.

By redirecting surplus food about to go to waste, Food Rescue Hero responds to SDG Target 12.3 – to halve per capita food waste by 2030 directly contributing to SDG 2, Zero Hunger. Food waste is one of the major sources of carbon emissions. By redirecting food from going to landfills, the organization also mitigates climate change, responding to SDG 13.

Tracking with SDG 2030, the Food Rescue Hero technology platform aims to support food rescue’s scale in 100 cities by 2030.

Leah has won numerous awards for her work including Carnegie Mellon University’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2021, the Vital Voices’ Global Leadership Award in 2020 and We Empower UN SDG challenge in 2019, a global award for women social entrepreneurs.

She is featured in the book “100 Women Using their Power to Empower,” with women leaders such as Melinda French Gates, Greta Thunberg and others. In March 2022, she was recognized in the Grist 50, a list of emerging leaders creating impactful solutions to climate change. April 2021, she was featured in Amazon’s “Alexa, Who Inspires You” campaign.

Her work has been featured in Stanford Social Innovation Review, NPR, Fast Company, The Washington Post, NowThis, US News & World Report among others. In 2020, the Food Rescue Hero technology platform won Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas award and was named a CES Innovation Honoree.

Leah is a Rockefeller Foundation/Acumen Fellow and received her graduate degree in Public Policy & Technology from Carnegie Mellon University. She was born and raised in the Philippines and currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA.