Judy Belk
Judy Belk leads The California Wellness Foundation in pursuing its mission to protect and improve the health and wellness of the people of California. She uses her vision and her voice to help Cal Wellness “level the playing field” so that everyone has access to health care, quality education, good jobs, healthy environments and safe neighborhoods.
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.