Karen Lehman

Karen Lehman is the director of Fresh Taste​, a funder collaborative formed by several Illinois foundations and the City of Chicago to relocalize Chicago’s food system and improve equity of access to good food. Karen’s food system work spans three decades, beginning with an award-winning PBS documentary on women’s leadership in farm movements. She directed both the Local Food and Regional Economy programs at The Minnesota Project, co-founded and was co-director of the Youth Farm and Market Project in Minnesota and directed the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s Food and Agriculture Program.

Karen also held an endowed chair in Agricultural Systems at the University of Minnesota, consulted with the Ford Foundation on rural development in Mexico and received a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government as a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow. Prior to Fresh Taste, Karen was a Senior Associate with Cambridge Leadership Associates.