Protected: Judy Belk, Host

Judy Belk is president and CEO of The California Wellness Foundation, (Cal Wellness), one of California’s largest public health philanthropic institutions. With $1 billion in assets, Cal Wellness awards approximately $45 million annually in grants and program-related investments that promote health equity, justice, and advocacy for communities and individuals whose lives and wellness are too often determined by their race, income, immigration status or where they live.

Throughout its 28-year history, Cal Wellness has played a leadership role in promoting violence prevention as a public health issue and is one of the nation’s leading philanthropic voices in funding gun violence prevention efforts. Belk leads the foundation in pursuing its mission to protect and improve the health and wellness of the people of California, with a core belief that access to quality health care is a human right. Belk is also a board member and officer on the Cal Wellness board of directors. 

Belk is a seasoned leader with more than 25 years of senior management experience in the philanthropic, government, nonprofit, and corporate sectors. Before joining Cal Wellness in April 2014, she served as senior vice president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and as vice president of global public affairs at Levi Strauss & Co.  

She is a frequent writer and speaker on organizational ethics, race, and social change, and she blogs regularly at the foundation’s website on issues related to its grantmaking and public policy priorities. She currently serves on the boards of the Surdna Foundation, a national New York-based family foundation, and Hedgebrook, a women’s writing retreat in the state of Washington that promotes women’s voices and social change. She is also an advisory board member for the University of California Firearms Violence Research Center, the first state-supported institution of its kind in the country. 

Belk received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and her master’s degree in public administration from California State University, East Bay.