About

Over 15-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 70M pounds of food since 2015 from going to waste via technology that mobilizes over 25,000 drivers in 13 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 April 2021, she was featured in Amazon’s “Alexa, Who Inspires You” campaign and 2018, was named "Pittsburgher of the Year" by Pittsburgh City Paper.

Her work has been featured in NPR, Fast Company, The Washington Post, NowThis, Food & Wine, Marie Claire, and Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine 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 received her graduate degree in Public Policy & Technology from Carnegie Mellon University, where she also recently served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence. She was born and raised in the Philippines and currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA.

Education

Carnegie Mellon University

Public Policy and Management - Highest Distinction

Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Climate Emergency Programme 2021 - WeEmpower SDG

Ateneo de Manila University

Management Economics - BA

Licenses and Certifications

Practitioner of Human-Centered Design

LUMA Institute - Mar 2017

Plant-based Nutrition

Cornell University - Aug 2011

Publications

Improving Efficiency of Volunteer-Based Food Rescue Operations 

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

November 2019

A Human-Centered Approach to Algorithmic Services: Considerations for Fair Smart Community Service Management that Allocates Donations to Non-Profit Organizations

Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 2017