Richard (Rick) Leach is Executive Director of Arizona State University’s Food is Medicine Initiative and a Professor of Practice in the College of Health Solutions. He leads a nationwide effort to address diet-related disease by integrating nutrition into the U.S. healthcare system and reshaping Americans’ relationship with food. In this role, Leach works across healthcare systems, employers, communities, and policymakers to scale evidence-based nutrition interventions in Arizona and build a roadmap for national adoption.
Leach brings more than three decades of leadership experience across government, the United Nations, nonprofit organizations, academia, and the private sector. Prior to joining ASU, he served as President and CEO of World Food Program USA (WFP USA), the organization he established to strengthen U.S. engagement with the United Nations World Food Programme. During his ten-year tenure, he led bipartisan efforts to expand U.S. food security programs, built a robust congressional advocacy operation, and developed private-sector partnerships that enhanced WFP’s global humanitarian response. Under his leadership, WFP received record U.S. government funding and advanced a strategic framework linking food insecurity, instability, and U.S. national security interests. Earlier in his career, Leach directed global and national initiatives addressing public health, environmental protection, and human rights. He was appointed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to create and lead the federal government’s National Immunization Outreach Program. He has also led major initiatives with the World Health Organization, including developing a global strategy to halt the production and trade of counterfeit drugs, and with the World Wildlife Fund, where he launched the Living Planet Campaign to promote biodiversity protection across the globe.
Leach has advised and collaborated with U.S. congressional leaders, the White House, international agencies, academic institutions, and private-sector partners on issues ranging from hunger and nutrition security to pandemic preparedness and response. He has published on international human rights and micro-enterprise development and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His board service includes Winrock International, the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, and George Washington University’s Planet Forward initiative. Leach holds a Juris Doctor degree, magna cum laude, from California Western School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in political science, with honors, from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
