What Kahn, through OzHarvest, has been doing for 20 years is saving tens of thousands of tonnes of food from landfill and redirecting it to people in need.   

It started off small and simple, with Kahn rescuing good-quality surplus food left over from her events and delivering it to local charities. OzHarvest has grown to a team of 400 staff and thousands of volunteers, who save more than 250 tonnes of food each week from 2600 donors, including restaurants, supermarkets and hotels and deliver it to more than 1500 charities feeding the hungry.   

The organisation also runs three national education programs — NEST, FEAST and Nourish — and the OzHarvest model operates in New Zealand, Japan, the UK and Kahn’s native South Africa.  

The need for such a service became clear to Kahn in the early 2000s as she observed the obscene amount of untouched food, all destined for landfill, left over from events.   

“I didn’t intend this to be my life’s work,” she recalls. “I also didn’t know the scale of the problem, so I thought I would just do this and solve this little issue and get on with the rest of my life.”

One year later, OzHarvest was launched.   

“I think what’s really important is that I didn’t make this great leap until I was 50... young people look at me and say ‘I want to be just like you’ and I’m so grateful, I’m honoured, but remember I only started at 50,” she says.

“The fact is that sometimes we need to live, and experience multiple ways of being, before we can bring all of those values and character traits to become something else.”

She credits her parents, Abe and Sylvia Hellmann, for teaching her resilience and courage in the way they dealt with the aftermath of a devastating car crash which nearly killed Abe, a talented architect, when Kahn was six. He would spend almost two years in hospital, learning to walk again against all odds while Sylvia, who had not worked since the couple married, started a cake business to supplement the loss of income. She baked and delivered 250 cakes a week, feeding others — just as Kahn would later do.   

“There’s no doubt that I had extraordinary role models. Both my father and my mother were of the character that you get on and do things, you make the best of things, which is extraordinary, because (the accident) was life-changing for both of them,” she recalls.  

“That kind of role-modelling is subliminal. The thing that I gained through all the different aspects of my life were the values that I picked up across the years in that varied lifestyle, being brought up during the apartheid era, experiencing life in a commune where the philosophy was that everyone’s equal, and then having to make a living on my own.” 

Kahn’s enduring inspiration is Nelson Mandela; “he had the courage, charisma, the passion and the power... he held on to his belief around what was right and he was willing to die for it”.

She speaks often of her values, the driving force in everything she does, which have guided her when navigating the often difficult road of running a charity.

“I didn’t study leadership MBAs, nor did I do any of the marketing courses that one could have. And I think that it evolved,” she says.

“The mouse did not realise that it was growing muscle, but muscle was being developed, and so it’s been a journey of acceptance. The first six years... I struggled with the board, I struggled with the fact that I had such a clear vision around what this should look like, and I guess that’s also starting to show this notion of leadership, that I was willing to fight for that vision, even when it meant going against some of the standard ways of doing things.

“So I’ve always thought that I was a square peg in a round hole in those first years because I didn’t understand governance, but I quickly learned.

“Exercising that muscle helps a lot when you are willing to open up, to take advice, to understand that this was a journey.”

Kahn says she is a “magnet for magnificent people” and prides herself on creating a workplace culture which reflects her values. When recruiting, she carries out the final interview of almost every new hire.

She isn’t looking for skills. She is looking for attitude, capacity and passion.

“We’ve got 400 employees, each and every one is a wonderful unit in their own right, but what we have in common is a shared passion for our cause and an attitude of gratitude... and that’s what I look for.”

An important quality in any good leader is knowing when the time is right to hand over the reins, and Kahn made that decision last year when she stepped aside as OzHarvest’s chief executive.

After an international search, experienced executive James Goth, formerly chief operating officer of Seven Group Holdings, was appointed CEO.

But Kahn had no intention of retiring, instead remaining on the board and moving into a newly created role of visionary in residence. She describes herself and Goth as yin and yang, with her successor big on details and operations while she is “big picture”.

“I was looking for someone who came with skills of running big business, because the role we play is big,” she says. “But I also wanted someone who would not be threatened by me because I’m not disappearing... someone who could work together with me and not feel that I would in any way step on their toes.

“That’s been an interesting journey to find someone who felt that it would be a great opportunity for us to work together, rather than someone who thought you should go and disappear into the sunset.”

“This is really good for the organisation, and it does mean change, and change is a challenge... and it’s interesting for me not to be in on the tiny details but I’m actually loving not being part of that.”

Her focus in the new role is a coming initiative, the Hunger Solutions Lab, a collaborative platform which will “understand, shift and change the levers for hunger”.

Kahn will recruit partners from the corporate, research, government and charity sectors and hopes big business will come on board in a financial capacity.

“There’s so much research being done already, (but) there’s not enough doing. So we need to pull together everything that we know about this problem, and then look at what is it going to take to do the solutions,” she says.

The need for such solutions cannot be overstated. When Kahn started OzHarvest, three million Australians were going hungry. Today that figure is estimated at 10 million.

“In my 20 years, I’ve never seen the need as great as it is,” Kahn says. “Now there’s a new demographic of need: 30 per cent of people turning to us, and to the organisations we support, have never needed to ask for money, have never been in this position before. Most of them have jobs.”

“The same week Kahn spoke to this publication, two people she knew called her to say, “We are starving, can you help?”

“There is something fundamentally broken in our system. And whilst I am in awe that we are 20 years old, in awe that we deliver 500,000 meals a week, we’re not meeting the demand. So as a leader now, I’m keen and interested to deal with that issue.”

The ongoing challenge for OzHarvest, Kahn observes, is that it is using other people’s money, so ensuring it has the value proposition right is key. She will not use the term not-for-profit, instead preferring “for purpose”.

“You don’t hear any major business call themselves a ‘not-for-loss’. We have profit, we just measure it differently. So I say that we are the for-purpose sector and that, in itself, is a challenge, because people look at us and think we should be walking around with our cap in hand.

“I’ve never done that. We have a phenomenal value proposition. Invest in us. We feed people. We shift and change behaviour. We stop good food from going to waste.”

She believes every business should consider its social value beyond simply keeping shareholders happy.

“Of course, shareholders need to be happy but because I use other people’s money, we have to always be so mindful that we’re getting the best value, which is why ‘$1 equals two meals’ has been our value proposition since we started, and we’ve managed to maintain that, which is incredible,” she says.

“One of the key things about leadership is never to get complacent in any aspect. It doesn’t matter if this is a for-purpose organisation or a for-profit organisation... (it’s to) keep checking, are we doing things better? Are we doing them right?”

As OzHarvest celebrates 20 years and looks to adapt to meet the growing, evolving need, Kahn’s passion and purpose remain as strong as ever. As does the joy that the organisation brings her. She starts early and finishes late, making time for her family, music, books and Pilates in between.

“I really don’t think I’ve worked a day in the last 20 years,” she says. “This isn’t work, it’s coming to be stimulated, to be inspired and to inspire.”

To mark its 20th year and achieve OzHarvest’s goal of delivering an extra five million meals, a one-off fundraising concert, Unite to Feed Australia, will be held on November 7. It will be hosted by Seven Network’s Johanna Griggs and featuring stars including comedian Jimmy Rees, performer Courtney Act and singer Daryl Braithwaite. Tickets via Ticketek.