Barbie Izquierdo was appointed as a member of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition on March 24, 2023, for a 2-year term.
Ms. Izquierdo is the Director of Advocacy, Neighbors Engagement, at Feeding America and founder of Community Driven Consulting LLC. For more than a decade, Izquierdo has dedicated her life to fighting the exploitation of people with lived experience who have been affected by public policy. She has served as a global, bilingual spokesperson, speaking at the White House under the Obama-Biden administration on behalf of Witnesses to Hunger. She’s been featured in outlets like the Associated Press, CNN, the Washington Post, BBC World News, and People Magazine, as well as at conferences, on podcasts, and more. As an Afro-Latina born and raised in North Philadelphia, Izquierdo felt the impacts of food insecurity and other social justice issues firsthand and is now an advocate, organizer, and consultant providing technical support regarding the engagement and inclusion of people with lived experience. In 2022, she was awarded the 2022 Citizen Prize by Global Citizen, which celebrates remarkable changemakers who are taking exceptional actions to end extreme poverty now. Izquierdo understands the power of storytelling and has used her lived experience and advocacy journey as a catalyst for policy change. She was featured in the call-to-action documentary A Place at the Table, highlighting the implications U.S. hunger has on the economic, social, and cultural well-being of the country and the solutions required to solve it once and for all. Izquierdo’s mission is to help bring dignity and equity into the frameworks used by nonprofit organizations and government entities.
