Paul Clements

Paul Clements is a food systems strategist with more than two decades of leadership working across the nonprofit, corporate, and social enterprise sectors. His work sits at the intersection of business strategy, sustainability, food recovery, and community impact, bringing together businesses, farmers, nonprofits, and communities to build stronger, more resilient local food systems.

Paul earned a degree in Communications and Public Relations from the University of South Alabama before beginning his career in hunger relief at Feeding the Gulf Coast and later Second Harvest of the Big Bend. There, he led fundraising, marketing, and multi-site food bank operations while expanding community partnerships and strengthening organizational impact.

Before joining Second Helpings Atlanta, Paul spent more than a decade with Whole Foods Market, where he led corporate social responsibility initiatives across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. He developed and led the company's global Nourishing Our Neighborhoods initiative, helping divert nearly 30 million pounds of surplus food from landfills while providing millions of nutritious meals to communities in need.

As Executive Director of Second Helpings Atlanta, Paul led a period of significant organizational growth and transformation. Under his leadership, the organization strengthened its financial position, expanded its network of food donors and nonprofit partners, modernized technology systems, grew fundraising capacity, and launched the Field to Fork partnership, creating a model that purchases surplus produce directly from Georgia farmers while increasing access to fresh, healthy food for families experiencing food insecurity.

Paul has dedicated his career to building cross-sector partnerships that create practical, scalable solutions to food system challenges. He believes lasting progress requires looking beyond any one organization or one solution, bringing together agriculture, business, investors, philanthropy, nonprofits, and communities to build a food system that is more resilient, more sustainable, and better equipped to serve everyone.

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