2024 ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit

Devon Klatell is Managing Director, Food Initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation. In this role, Ms. Klatell leads the Foundation’s work to advance a more nourishing and sustainable food system in the United States. Currently, she is collaborating with schools, healthcare insurers, hospitals, food service businesses, policy advocates and communities to increase consumption of healthy, protective foods by vulnerable children and families. In addition, Ms. Klatell oversees the Foundation’s work to prevent wasted food in the U.S., which seeks to eliminate the enormous environmental, social, and economic costs caused by food waste. Throughout her time at the Foundation, Ms. Klatell has designed and implemented a variety of food system strategies alongside the Foundation’s grantees and partners. These include programs to bring more whole, nutrient-rich foods into our national food recovery system, advance sustainable protein production and consumption around the world, activate city-level strategies to prevent food waste, disrupt the status quo of school meals, and recruit the healthcare sector as an ally in building a healthier food system.

Prior to taking on her current role, Ms. Klatell led the process to refresh the Foundation’s global point of view on food and agriculture. She previously led the Foundation’s Strategic Planning team, which designed implementation models, resource plans, risk assessments and impact targets for the Foundation’s global initiatives. In that role, Devon worked on the Foundation’s initiatives to address energy poverty, connect unemployed African youth with the digital economy, and reduce postharvest losses. Before joining the Foundation, Devon was a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners and at Booz & Company. Ms. Klatell holds a B.A. from Harvard University in cognitive psychology and an M.A. in food systems from New York University, where she researched behavioral economics in addition to a broad array of cultural, historic, economic, and regulatory food issues.