Leslee is deeply curious about the ways nature informs, business, leadership, and systems. Having decades of development experience with incubating and scaling businesses, she believes in a post competitive, open-source collaborative future. Leslee is a Mother, artist, and community builder and has held roles of instructor, chef, entrepreneur, and C- level executive. What she loves best, is amplifying the work of small businesses and helping navigate the peaks and valleys of leadership and decision making.
As a PNW food systems expert, she is passionate about economic and social justice, cultivating more circular local economies, rebuilding shared regional inclusive diverse food sheds, and creating accessibility, affordability within human-scaled economies.
“I am so honored to be joining the team at Spice Bridge. I was drawn to this position because it is a confluence of so many things I love. The main reasons being, working in service and support to food businesses and being part of a collective of humans who are committed to food justice.
I believe there has never been a time we have been working to solve so many problems at once, environmentally, economically, and for the health, safety, inclusion and wellness of all our community members. At a time when we feel isolated, the antidote to our fatigue is to find resources in community; the ways to work together, to find those who we can go far with. To collaborate for the highest good. To ask ourselves, what systems can we disrupt? What needs our nurture, and what needs healing? The work requires us to look deeply at ourselves and participate while holding curiosity and willingness to hold change. Food is a great connector, all are deserving of nutrient dense and culturally specific clean foods.
The culture around how we eat and feed our communities, globally and locally is reflective of our social and economic value sets. I have worked in many aspects of food, in potlatch economies, as a farmer, chef, and at home as a single mother feeding 3 kids. I have owned and operated a restaurant, worked as a consultant for startups, incubation spaces, and in micro and large scale distribution. My work and learning has been centered on engaging hard questions around what social and economic diversity and justice looks like locally, especially around re-imagining more equitable and participatory food systems.
As The Market Relations Manager, I look forward to meeting each of you, supporting new opportunities for growth and partnership, emboldening awareness about Spice Bridge, and engaging with the work we will co-create in 2022.”
Leslee Dixon, FIN Market Relations Manager