Helene York

Adjunct Faculty, The Culinary Institute of America; San Francisco, CA

Helene York teaches Sustainability, Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss in the first semester of the CIA's Master's Program in Food Systems, and an undergraduate class, Building Values-based Supply Chains to Improve the Food System at the University of California, Berkeley. Having finished a full-time career leading both food procurement decision-making and sustainability initiatives (often together) for several leading food companies, Helene is now teaching, mentoring, writing, and inspiring others to think more critically and take bolder actions. In colleges and companies, Sustainable Food Systems and Business are typically siloed as separate disciplines. Students in each area learn little about the other. Consequently, we have managers in private, nonprofit, and public institutions who can’t speak each others’ languages, much less understand their concerns, goals, or mechanisms, or work together. Her cross-disciplinary forthcoming book hopes to bridge this gap, providing case studies and a framework for working collaboratively toward mutual goals. (San Francisco, CA)