Melissa Kogut
Melissa Kogut became Executive Director of Chefs Collaborative, one of the founding chef voices steering the conversation in the local, sustainable food movement, in August, 2007. In the past 4-1/2 years, Melissa has focused the organization’s resources on expanding the depth, reach and effectiveness of its educational and community building programs for chefs and the greater food community.
Melissa has a background in nonprofit management and community organizing. Prior to her position with Chefs Collaborative, she served for 11 years as executive director of NARAL Massachusetts, a statewide organization that advocates for women’s health. In 2006, Melissa received the Abigail Adams Award from the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, which recognizes and honors outstanding women leaders. Melissa also has several years experience working in the restaurant industry and a longstanding interest in food, the environment, and sustainability issues.
Leigh Belanger, program director 
Leigh directs the organization’s educational and community-building initiatives. She leads production of the national Sustainable Food Summit, oversees content development of the educational publications, and directs the local network activities. Leigh has been with Chefs Collaborative since 2006, when she started as the communications coordinator. Before joining the Chefs Collaborative staff, Leigh worked as a freelance food and recipe writer, a gourmet food shop-girl, a waitress, and a pastry and line cook.
A Massachusetts native and a graduate of The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, Leigh has been food-focused since high school. She is working on her Masters degree in Food Studies at Boston University and is the author of the soon-to-be released book, Boston Homegrown. She lives in Jamaica Plain with her husband and two-year-old son (who she’s teaching to garden and cook).
Jennifer Ede
As Development and Marketing Associate, Jen handles member relations, produces our monthly newsletter “FreshNet”, plans events, and dreams up social media strategies to get the Chefs Collaborative mission in front of as many people as possible. She can usually be found updating the website, drafting e-blasts and press releases, Facebooking or Tweeting.
Jen considers herself a bit of a culinary orphan, a feeling that compels her to always try to discover and appreciate regional food traditions. After working in the restaurant industry for several years, doing consulting and biz dev for a start-up, and moonlighting as a locavore personal chef, Jen considers her position at Chefs Collaborative to be a true convergence of her accumulated experience and skills. When she’s not at the Collaborative, she can usually be found antiquing or trawling the Intarwebs for vintage cookbooks. Turn of the century to pre-WWII preferred.
Rob Booz
Rob came to Chefs Collaborative in January 2011 as the Communication and Outreach intern. After two months of working as an intern, he ended up as the Network Coordinator. Rob comes from the kitchens and fields of the industry. Rob’s first job, way back in his youth in rural Durham, Connecticut, was picking corn for a local farm stand.
After graduating from the University of Vermont in 2007, where he studied Studio Art, Geology, and English, as well as maintaining a food blog, Rob turned to full-time cooking in Vermont before branching out to cook and farm in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Italy, and Germany. Rob returned to New England in the fall of 2010, and is excited to be involved with Chefs Collaborative efforts to support and advance sustainability and local sourcing within the restaurant industry.
When he’s not at the Chefs Collaborative office, Rob can be found attending graduate classes in food policy at Boston University, doing freelance food writing, fermenting pickles for a localvore caterer, or tending to his urban chickens and vegetable garden.
