Ellen Gustafson is a systems change activist, author, innovator and social entrepreneur.  And she is a military spouse, mother of three miracle children and patriotic American.

Ellen is a the Co-Executive Director and Co-Founder of We the Veterans and Military Families - a non-partisan, non-profit empowering the veteran and military family community to strengthen the foundation of American democracy. She is also the Co-Founder of the Military Family Building Coalition - the first military support organization to address the challenges of building a family for active duty military.

She was the Co-Director of the Summit Institute from 2015-2020, hosting social innovation events at Summit Powder Mountain in Eden, UT and working to connect an elite community of entrepreneurs with pressing global challenges and drive new thinking and solutions. 

She has also been a passionate leader of the global food system change movement. Her book, “We the Eaters: If We Change Dinner, We Can Change the World” was published by Rodale Press in May 2014. She was an early Co-Founder of Food Tank: the Food Think Tank, which is run by President Danielle Nierenberg, and had founded the 30 Project, a campaign that helped to change the conversation about the global food system by connecting hunger and obesity after her first TEDx talk in 2010. She created the ChangeDinner campaign, a line of sustainably-made aprons and HealthClass2.0, which helped individuals change the food system at dinner tables and in schools.

In 2007, Ellen Co-Founded FEED Projects, LLC, a charitable company that creates good products that help FEED the world, and FEED’s non-profit partner, the FEED Foundation. FEED has provided over 100 million school meals to children around the world. Ellen was also a US Spokesperson for the UN World Food Program, a terrorism research reporter in the ABC News Investigative Unit, and a research associate for the Military Fellows at the Council on Foreign Relation. She has a BA in International Politics from Columbia University

She has been featured as one of AOL and PBS’s MAKERS, trailblazing women who are “making” America, Fortune Magazine’s 2009 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, Inc Magazine’s 2010 30 Under 30, and Diplomatic Courier Magazine’s 2011 “Top 99 Under 33” in Foreign Policy. Ellen has spoken at the Fortune Most Powerful Women’s Conference, the World Food Prize, and was the Co-Chair of the Economist’s Feeding the World conference and has guest lectured at Harvard, Yale, NYU, London School of Economics, Columbia and the US Naval Academy and given 4 TEDx talks. 

She served on the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Advisory Board from 2011-2017 and the Board of San Diego’s Community Health Improvement Partners from 2013-2016, and has served on the Columbia University Alumni Board of Directors and was a founding Director of Bronx Success Academy 1, a charter school within the Success Charter Network. She was a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Visit her on Wikipedia.

Ellen Gustafson, Inc. creates strategies for social impact in companies and non-profits of all sizes.