Kerry Brodie

Kerry Brodie

Kerry Brodie is the founder and executive director of Emma’s Torch. Emma’s Torch is a non profit social enterprise that provides culinary training and job placement services to refugees, asylees, and survivors of human trafficking. Emma’s Torch was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Greatest Places in the World in 2018, and has been featured in The New Yorker, The Rachael Ray Show, The New York Times, Vogue Magazine, and others.

Kerry dreamed of Emma’s Torch long before it became a reality. Cooking has always been her passion: at the age of five, she started training under the watchful eyes of her grandmother, a former caterer and event planner.

Working in media — as the Global Press Secretary for the Human Rights Campaign and the Director of Communications at the Israeli Embassy — the daily headlines about the refugee crisis screamed in her face.

The time to act is now, she decided. After all, as Anne Frank once said, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Isn’t it though?

Kerry is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education, where she won the Wusthof Award for Leadership. She was also named one of CNN’s Heroes in 2019, JWI’s Women to Watch in 2022, and one of the Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36 in 2018. She holds a Masters in Government from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelors in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University.