Meet Our New Co-Executive Directors
From left to right: Pei-Yee Woo, Co-ED of Organizational Resourcing, and Lauren Schneider, Co-ED of Program
New changes are taking root at Kitchen Table Advisors in 2024. We are beaming with joy as we announce a change in our leadership structure and introduce you to our new Co-Executive Directors.
As of February 2024, KTA has shifted our leadership model from a distributed team of 8 Co-Directors to a more focused group of 2 Co-Executive Directors who are responsible for stewarding our organizational vision and strategy.
Our new Co-ED of Organizational Resourcing – overseeing our Development, Communications, People & Culture, and Operations departments – is Pei-Yee Woo. Our new Co-ED of Program – overseeing our 1:1 Business Advising and Ecosystem Building programs – is Lauren Schneider. Lauren’s experience developing and overseeing programs for smallholder farmers across the globe alongside Pei-Yee’s 10-year tenure at KTA and expertise in nonprofit management represent a strong complement of skills and wisdom to guide our organization.
An Organizational Transition
PC: Inspira Studios
This transition comes after years of learnings around how our org structure responds to and supports the needs of our clients and staff, which has doubled in size in recent years. In the past year specifically, we identified internal areas of opportunity and friction by gathering feedback and recommendations from our staff and advisory board as well as researching alternative organizational structures. Through this journey, it was clear that shifting our leadership model would increase organizational capacity to fulfill our programmatic work as well as steward operations and resource generation for KTA. Additionally, a Co-ED leadership model enables greater focus on KTA’s purpose and vision, ensuring that all strategic efforts across our team of 24 are aligning toward both.
We believe unique wisdom and talents lie within each member of our team at KTA, which is reflected through our sharing of power and leadership across our staff. This will remain constant in this transition; we will continue to practice our democratic decision-making framework as a team. At the core of our organization, we are farmer and rancher-centered, driven by the experiences of our clients. We are steadfast in our commitment to the individuals and families we support, and will continue to look to our staff who work most closely with our clients as a guiding voice in KTA’s programmatic decision-making and resource allocation.
Learn More About Lauren & Pei-Yee
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Lauren was born and raised in Marin County, where she spent much of her childhood appreciating the recreational and agricultural lands of West Marin. She started her career as a structural engineer and architect, but soon realized her passion was for the land itself and the people who surrounded the buildings, and steered her work towards agriculture.
Lauren has over a decade of experience helping to build and promote small-scale farmer profitability, empowerment, and sustainability. Her work has taken her all over the world to serve subsistence and commercial small-scale farmers across East Africa, Latin America, and Asia. With One Acre Fund in Kenya, she lived and worked in rural communities, designing programs and products in response to farmer needs. At Fair Trade USA and Enveritas, she worked with small-scale farm businesses across the globe, uplifting farmers’ voices and supporting them to overcome existing power dynamics in trading relationships. In all roles, Lauren has been a systems thinker who is values-driven and committed to putting farmers first.
This work led Lauren back home to California, where she found inspiration from Kitchen Table Advisors’ deep and trusted work in serving our food system leaders. Lauren first joined KTA in 2022 as the Director of Operations where she built out the Operations Team, led KTA's transition to a 501c3, stewarded annual planning, and set the course for program evaluation. She is deeply honored to step into the Co-Executive Director of Program role, as of February 2024, to support our Farm Business Advisors, Program Directors, and the broader community in continuing to bring our vision into reality - a vision where regenerative farmers and ranchers are thriving leaders of a vibrant, community-based economy that is rooted in the equitable distribution of power and resources.
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Pei-Yee was born and raised in the Bay Area in a family of educators and entrepreneurs who instilled in her the importance of working in intentional collaboration, building multi-generational economic resilience, and being of service to the community - key lessons she is now passing along to her two daughters.
Prior to joining the Kitchen Table Advisors team, she developed and honed her skills in program design & management, development and communications, operations, and strategic planning with NatureBridge, a national leader in environmental education, and Pie Ranch, a nonprofit educational farm. She detoured from the world of nonprofit management to pursue a love of food, and launched her own pastry company after a fellow pastry school classmate asked her to cater her son’s wedding brunch! As an entrepreneur, Pei-Yee sought ways to embed her values into the business, including building relationships with regional small-scale farmers, and leveraging the power of the collective by partnering with fellow women-led businesses to offer complementary sustainable event services.
A part of the KTA team since its founding in 2013, Pei-Yee has integrated these experiences into nurturing the organization’s growth, and of the ever-expanding community of individuals who support and champion our work. She is inspired and humbled daily by the powerful work of our clients, and grateful to be working alongside the talented folks who are, and have been, a part of Team KTA.
What’s Ahead In 2024
You will hear more from our Co-EDs in the late spring and early summer as we prepare for more organizational milestones at KTA this year, including our transition to an independent 501c3. In the meantime, if you want to connect with us during this transition, please drop us a message.
On a final note, we want to deeply appreciate all the individuals who have supported us in stepping into this new era of KTA – past and present staff and Kitchen Cabinet members, thought partners and advisors, and our ever-present guide, kiran nigam of Fortify Community Health.
