Leticia Landa

Leticia learned about La Cocina by reading a newspaper article about El Huarache Loco (a graduate) when she was in college, studying Anthropology at Harvard. She joined La Cocina in early 2008 as the third staff member.

Throughout her career at La Cocina, Leticia has relied on her experience being the daughter of Mexican immigrants who moved to the U.S. and started a business, to fuel her strong belief that business ownership can be transformative, particularly for women, immigrants and people of color. She is passionate about food and cooking, particularly the way sharing food transmits memory.

Fluent in Spanish and French, Leticia has loved learning from the 100+ entrepreneurs she’s worked with about food traditions from all over the world. Now Executive Director of La Cocina, Leticia has worn almost every hat at the organization over the last decade: writing grants, developing the incubator program, working directly with business owners, managing volunteers, consulting with other incubator, and co-authoring We Are La Cocina, a cookbook published by Chronicle Books in 2019.

Leticia has provided vision and strategy for the organization’s tremendous growth, leading to its international recognition. She is a recipient of the Basque Culinary World Prize 2025.