CELEBRATING CHRISTINE AND EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP TRANSITION ANNOUNCEMENT
The Los Angeles Food Policy Council’s Executive Committee in partnership with Executive Director, Christine Tran will be executing a planned leadership transition initiative beginning May 1, 2023. She will be departing in June to focus on family-related priorities and to complete her Ph.D. We are grateful to have had Christine's strong leadership over the past three years. We are simultaneously excited to announce the appointment of our current Director of Operations & Programs, Alba Velasquez, to receive the baton from Christine and lead the organization through this important period of change as our new Executive Director.
In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Christine transitioned from an LAFPC Working Group member to our Executive Director in May 2020. As a cross-sector organization, LAFPC was able to benefit from Christine’s diverse experiences in philanthropy, nonprofit, government, and academia. Christine’s commitment to impacted communities stems from her lived experiences. “I’m a child of Boat People Refugees and a first-generation high school graduate. I grew up poor but never hungry, because of effective food and social policies similar to those that LAFPC advocates for,” says Christine.
Under Christine’s leadership, LAFPC has advanced its work both locally and globally. In the Fall of 2020, as part of LAFPC’s Food Leaders Lab, Christine developed and facilitated a bilingual Food Ambassador program to empower 60 South Los Angeles residents with food justice frameworks and data analysis techniques. LAFPC also gained international recognition from the United Nations, Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, and C40. In the Fall of 2022, Slow Food USA selected Christine as LAFPC’s and the United States’ delegate to attend Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, the largest gathering of the Slow Food network to date, with over 3,000 delegates from 130 countries in Turin, Italy. From youth mobilization to BIPOC foodways, she led LAFPC to engage in issues related to indigenous food and cultural sovereignty and uplifting local narratives of people from impacted communities around the world.
Working in close partnership, Christine and Alba have guided LAFPC to the publication of our report Fresh Ideas for CalFresh (March 2022), a three-year project providing community-led systems change recommendations that documents the experiences of over 400 Angelenos experiencing food insecurity. LAFPC has also made important progress through increasing nutrition incentives at the state and county level via Farm Fresh LA and coalition efforts with LA Produces.
During her time with LAFPC, Christine has continued to thrive as a food justice writer in publications for KCET, PBS SoCal, Life & Thyme, and BOOM California. For LAFPC’s 2020 Annual and 10-Year Report, she partnered with LA Taco’s Javier Cabral to showcase a two-generational forward tribute to Jonathan Gold and LAFPC. Christine authored the introduction of the California Food Policy Council’s 2020 Annual Report, and helped launch LAFPC into a new era of storytelling with visual documentation through Community Chefs LA, Support Local, and documenting the stories of our Healthy Neighborhood Market Network partners like Village Mart & Deli (El Sereno) and Pickford Market (Midcity).
Christine has steered LAFPC to great heights, and in a recent interview for Womanly Magazine, she said: “The answer to systemic change is greater than me. Restorative justice is not a single policy. It must include practice. LAFPC works at the intersection of policy and practice…Change is not something we do on our own but is a collective experience.”
We thank Christine for her leadership and partnership, and we are excited about her next chapter! As she said, LAFPC is a champion for the collective experience we all are a part of. Together, we will continue to advance the cause of food justice and equity for all Angelenos and as an exemplar we will continue to make ripples that extend far beyond the communities we serve directly.
Please be on the lookout for upcoming blog entries chronicling our leadership transition process and previewing some of LAFPC’s upcoming initiatives as the organization launches its next chapter of intentional evolution!
Bryce Fluellen
Executive Committee Chair
Los Angeles Food Policy Council
