Helene York is a supply chain innovator with global and national experience. She previously served as Guckenheimer’s chief procurement officer and as global director, responsible business, for Compass Group at Google, where she led a supply chain team in an extremely dynamic environment. Prior to being embedded in Google, she was national director of purchasing strategy and director of strategic initiatives for Bon Appétit Management Company.

Impatient with supply chains “as is,” York works to understand what motivates suppliers and to partner with them on making significant improvements. She has developed new produce, seafood, meat, chocolate, and coffee supply chains for large-scale contract catering services, and has visited countless farms, fisheries, and processors. Her deep passion is in helping create channels for byproducts dismissed as “waste,” or sea vegetables (“eat what fish eat”).

York started her career in food promoting sustainable seafood to chefs who, along with supply chain managers, are the ‘choice editors’ of our food system and the real levers of change. York has served on the board of FishChoice and Humane Farm Animal Care, been named an international Seafood Champion by SeaWeb, and presented to audiences at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Commonwealth Club. She wrote for The Atlantic online (Food Channel) for 4 years. York graduated from Harvard College and the Yale School of Management. Give her a choice of eating oysters or anything else, and those little creatures – raw, fried, on a salad, or in a soufflé – will always win.