OUR TEAM

Lissa Bowen

Founder, The Good Work Collective

Lissa Bowen is the founder of The Good Work Collective, a workforce initiative creating paid career pathways for young people aging out of foster care. She brings more than three decades of experience in operations, hiring, and leadership development across hospitality and other fast-paced, customer-facing industries, where she has built teams, strengthened workplace culture, and designed systems that connect people to meaningful work.

Throughout her career in the restaurant industry, Lissa saw firsthand how structured, steady employment can stabilize lives and open doors. Hospitality has long been a landing place for people from all backgrounds—and workplace culture determine whether someone thrives or cycles through jobs without traction.

Lissa’s work is deeply informed by her proximity to the foster care community. She is a former Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), a foster parent, and a foster-adoptive parent. Through those experiences, she witnessed both the resilience young people impacted by foster care carry and the structural gaps that make stable employment difficult to access. She believes that good work—work that is structured, paid, and connected to growth—can fundamentally change outcomes.

Through Foster to Fly and The Good Work Collective, Lissa is building a scalable model that aligns workforce demand with opportunity youth while equipping employers with trauma-informed leadership tools. Her work is grounded in a simple conviction: when workplaces are intentional and young people are paid and supported, good work changes lives.