Leah Lizarondo, CEO, 412 Food Rescue

Leah Lizarondo is the CEO and co-founder of 412 Food Rescue, a tech nonprofit that aims to fight hunger and promote sustainability by preventing perfectly good food from entering the waste stream and redirecting it to organizations that serve those who are food insecure.

Founded in 2015, 412 Food Rescue is one of the fastest-growing food recovery organizations in the U.S. It has prevented over 11 million pounds of food from going to waste with a mobile app that mobilizes the world’s largest network of on-demand volunteer food recovery drivers – currently over 9,000 drivers in Pittsburgh alone. The model helps people and the planet: more than 9 million meals have been distributed to people in need, and by using food that would otherwise go to waste, over 6 million pounds of CO2 emissions have been prevented.

Leah’s work at 412 Food Rescue has been featured in national media including NPR, Fast Company, FoodTank, Martha Stewart Living, Food & Wine, Bust Magazine and Civil Eats. In 2020, the Food Rescue Hero technology platform won Fast Company's World Changing Ideas award and was named a CES Innovation Honoree. In 2019, it won the Carnegie Science Award for Information Technology. Leah has won numerous awards for her work, including the 2019 We Empower UN SDG challenge, a global award for women social entrepreneurs. She was a recipient of a 2020 GIobal Leadership Award from Vital Voices, was named "Pittsburgher of the Year" by Pittsburgh City Paper in 2018, and was included in FoodTank‘s “17 Food Heroes to Inspire Us in 2017."

Leah earned a graduate degree in Public Policy & Technology from Carnegie Mellon University. She serves as Entrepreneur in Residence at the Block Center for Technology & Society at Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and as Commissioner on the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations. She was born and raised in the Philippines and currently lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 


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