Founder and CEO, Angela de Silva, got the inspiration for Annapurna while out running errands and picking up a pre packaged meal while on the go. She saw an opportunity for an easy way to give back to the community by donating profits from the meals people are already purchasing. Feeling that this is something bigger than her, she named the Non-Profit Annapurna, as a nod to the Goddess of Food and Nutrition.
Angela is an Actress, Producer, and Vice Chair of the Women's Advisory Board for The City of West Hollywood. She studied at UC Irvine and Pepperdine's Graziadio School of Business.
Derek Carroll is a technology leader in the Medical Device industry who joins the Annapurna board as Chief Business Officer. As a Systems Engineering Manager at Becton Dickinson's Medication Delivery Solutions business unit, he is responsible for R&D functional management of teams developing life-saving infusion delivery products. In his prior experience, he worked in the bioprocessing industry as an R&D Manager for Repligen. There he was responsible for the development of automation systems used in pharmaceutical manufacturing and the development of novel purification technologies (including those which were used in the development and manufacturer of Covid-19 vaccines). Before starting at Repligen, Derek worked at Parker Hannifin's Medical Systems Division as a Product Engineer leading manufacturing programs before moving to R&D, where he co-developed novel medical devices as a Product Development Engineer through partnerships with the Cleveland Clinic and Weill Cornell.
Derek holds 10+ patents on products across multiple industries and has a track record of success in taking products from idea to global distribution. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), holds a Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University, and a Master's degree in biomedical engineering from Cornell University.
Madison Jennings joins the Annapurna board as Chief Operating Officer, with a wealth of experience spanning over a decade in managerial consulting, business operations & project management. Her specializations in high octane environments include tech/IT, creative branding, and video games. Madison has led project management on a few celebrity CPG projects through boutique design firm experience and supported such tech/IT clients as Xbox, Microsoft and others.
Before working in tech/IT & creative operations, Madison oversaw project management in luxury construction projects for a Los Angeles-based firm. She boasts a proven track record in successfully partnering with other managers and executives through collaborative innovation, task delegation, and execution for overall organizational success.
Madison holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from UC Riverside, with an emphasis on Nonfiction. She is also a doctoral candidate for her DBA in Business Administration, with an emphasis on Entrepreneurship & Finance.
Madison is based in Los Angeles.
Jared Paul comes to Annapurna as Chief Development Officer with 17 years of experience generating funds and developing long-term, sustainable revenue streams at health and human service organizations including APLA Health, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
Throughout his career in development, Jared has focused on building relationships between organizations and their everyday, middle income donors and advocates. Fostering passionate, empowered communities of stakeholders—in concert with traditional stewardship practices and earnest involvement of capable benefactors—is his formula for fundraising success.
In other arenas of his life Jared works as a private chef and is the founder of Hola Aloha Supper Club.
Jared is a volunteer at Burning Man Project. He is currently based in Los Angeles.
Our Menu Creator, Rolan Pongpuntara is the owner of Side Kitch—a healthy, wholesome meal delivery kitchen that teaches clients to “eat with intention”. As a food & health entrepreneur, she brings many years of expertise in nutrition and wellness to the “kitchen table”! As a child, she often accompanied her father at various farmer’s market/swap meets, learning his technique for product sales first hand. At, 19 she worked as a pharmacy tech, which grew her interest in weight loss and healthy lifestyle planning and ultimately led her to exploring alternative medicine.
In 2013, she started Chomp Eatery & Juice Station in Santa Monica with a business partner. In this phase, she discovered she enjoyed promoting healthy lifestyle through food, and helping clients detox and cleanse with cold-pressed juices.
In 2017 after a period of mediation, she founded Side Kitch. Aligning with her experience, she found purpose in healing people through food. When Rolan is in the kitchen, she develops recipes by putting mindful ingredients together to create healthy, colorful and tasty dishes.
Side Kitch offers a wide variety of menus that focus on diverse dietary needs customized to fit every client, whether she’s providing meal preps to an individual or an entire company! Rolan’s vision is to serve the community meals that are not only healthy and delicious, but make people feel good afterwards. She also combines paleo desserts, Whole30 ingredients and a Keto touch to some of her custom menus. Rolan believes in healing the body with love and nourishment, but without any restricting diets.
This year, she is rolling out her own special collection of healing spice blends, using only an organic array of spices and superfood ingredients!
Rolan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Colorado State University. She is also Reiki 1 & 2 certified, and Breathwork 1, 2, 3 & 4 certified. Rolan is based in Los Angeles.
Caitlyn Haley joins the Annapurna board as President of the Junior Board. Caitlyn is a high school senior who plans to major in Environmental Science or Environmental Engineering in Fall 2021. She has a variety of volunteer experience, including working with a nationally known researcher on COVID transmission in the major US sports leagues, the Los Cerritos Wetland Authority wetland recovery project, Seal Beach LEOs, and the National Honor Society supporting COVID hospital patients and food banks. Caitlyn also teaches surfing at two local surf academies and tutors math students.
Caitlyn is the captain of her high school surf team, and is the Seaview Surf League women’s surf champion. Caitlyn loves to spend time on the ocean surfing and in the ocean scuba diving.
Caitlyn lives in Seal Beach, and is looking forward to giving back to the community through Annapurna!