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Kirsten Saenz Tobey co-founded Revolution Foods in 2006 while in graduate school at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Revolution Foods’ mission is to build lifelong healthy eaters by making kid-inspired, chef-crafted food accessible to all. Based in Oakland, Revolution Foods is becoming the nation’s leading innovative, nationwide food solution for citywide wellness. Revolution Foods, now over $130 million in revenue, serves approximately 2 million healthy, affordable meals per week across 10 states, serving over 1000 school and community sites in the US.
Currently, Kirsten oversees the product strategy for the company as well as stewarding the mission and impact strategy for the company. Kirsten also leads the B Corp certification process for the company and led the company’s effort to convert to a Public Benefit Corporation.
During her time at Revolution Foods, Kirsten has led many innovation initiatives and has built strategic partnerships, including establishing the Feeding Good Fund, a nonprofit fund whose aim is to provide grants to schools to facilitate the implementation of healthy meal programs, and the Feeding Good Project, a partnership designed to leverage philanthropic funding to provide meals directly to families in need.
Revolution Foods has been named by Fast Company as one of the world’s 50 most innovative companies and has been listed as one of Fortune Magazine’s “Seven World-Changing Companies to Watch”. Kirsten is a social entrepreneurship fellow for the Schwab Foundation (2015), as well as an Ashoka Fellow, and an Aspen Institute Environmental Fellow (2010). Kirsten and her co-founder Kristin were listed among Fortune's 40 under 40 for 2013, identified as Time Magazine's Education Activists of 2011, and co-named Entrepreneurs of the Year by NewSchools Venture Fund in 2010.
Kirsten currently is a member of the Board of Directors for Mercaris and nonprofits ARTA River Trips and Amigos de las Americas. She has also served as an advisor for several startup companies, including Wellio (sold to KraftHeinz in 2018), Down to Cook/Adda Veggie, Bixbee, and immi Foods.
Kirsten’s first leadership experience was in Ecuador as a Field Supervisor and Assistant Project Director for Amigos de las Americas, managing groups of youth volunteers and coordinating with local and international development agencies. After college, she became a Spanish teacher and Community Service Teaching Fellow at Phillips Academy in Andover. She served as a Research Associate for Earthjustice, where she supported environmental litigation and ran public health campaigns in California’s Central Valley. She then moved to Mexico where she led experiential education programs for college students studying coastal fisheries. During business school, she worked for the United Nations Hunger Task Force in Ghana, where her report evaluating the scalability of school feeding programs led to $25 million funding from multinational and development aid agencies. Kirsten holds an AB from Brown University and an MBA from UC Berkeley. She speaks fluent Spanish and is proficient in French. She lives in Berkeley, California with her husband and three children.
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