Jennifer Flanagan is the executive director/founder of Community Kitchen Pittsburgh, a nonprofit focused on culinary-based workforce training for people with barriers to employment.

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Before launching Community Kitchen, she worked for Allegheny County Department of Human Services, where she worked in the Data Analysis, Research & Evaluation division, assisting community-based employment & training providers with outcome tracking and analysis, and managing a Department of Justice-funded employment & training initiative for the Allegheny County Jail Collaborative.

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Flanagan has spent the last 17 years working in and around nonprofit social enterprises and believes strongly in finding market solutions to address social problems. She served as Chief Business Development Officer for Lutheran Service Society, where she worked on creating and launching a workforce-based social enterprise for the agency, raising all the necessary start-up funding, and developing contracts that grew to $3M annually. Prior to that, Flanagan worked as venture advisor, responsible for assisting Pittsburgh-based nonprofits with the research, planning, launch, and growth of social enterprise businesses. Previous experience also includes securing and managing federal grants and multi-state demonstration projects for the health care and educational sectors, and a 10- year stint in the corporate sector doing marketing and communications.