Jeff DykstraCo-Founder and Senior Advisor, Partners in Food Solutions
For the last 16 years Jeff served as Co-founder & CEO of the award-winning global non-profit, Partners in Food Solutions (PFS), that he co-founded with General Mills leadership in 2008. PFS brings together leading international food companies, governments, private donors, and more than 1,600 African Food companies to address food security, nutrition and economic development across eleven African countries. PFS creates impact by sharing the private sector know-how of their corporate partners with high potential African food companies. This work helps PFS clients across Africa employ tens of thousands of workers, provide markets for millions of smallholder farmers, and serve hundreds of millions of consumers with billions of safer and healthier meals.
Jeff has worked for both large, international companies and organizations like Cargill and World Vision as well as scrappy start-up ventures. He has lived and worked with his family in both Zambia and Kenya and has had the privilege of spending meaningful time and building relationships with social entrepreneurs, civic, religious, social justice, and government leaders, philanthropists, and individuals in more than 25 countries.
In acknowledgement of his leadership and the impact of PFS, he has in recent years been named both an Ashoka Fellow and a Bush Fellow. As part of his Bush Fellowship, he attended and graduated from University of Oxford where he earned a Masters Diploma in Organizational Leadership and at Georgetown University where he studied and became an ICF accredited leadership coach.
Jeff is a Colorado native and currently reside in Edina, Minnesota with his wife, Molly, where he is active in the community serving on several non-profit and for-profit boards. Jeff loves time with family and friends, biking/running/skiing/fishing in wild, beautiful places, and good conversations that get to the heart of the matter.