Selma van Halder

Selma joined SVP as Program Manager in April 2022, later transitioning to the Director of Community Capacity in December 2022. In this role, she is providing SVP Investees and Partners a high-quality end-to-end capacity building experience and driving our capacity building programming. 

Selma is Dutch, with roots in the Netherlands, Indonesia, France, Scotland, and Nigeria, and has been an uninvited guest on Coast Salish Peoples lands since 2013. Before joining SVP, Selma was the Program Manager at SVP alumna Growing Chefs. Besides being a trained chef and educator, she has a background in intercultural communication, organizational behaviour, qualitative research and facilitation, and events and logistics management. She is passionate about co-creating supportive team cultures and communities, justice and equity in the non-profit space, and the daily work needed to achieve them. You can often find her with her nose in a book, singing in a choir, or gushing about food.

Selma holds an MTh in Inter-religious Communication and Conflict from the University of Glasgow, a BA in Anthropology of Religion from Leiden University, and a Culinary Arts certificate from the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. She has a combined 13 years of experience in hospitality (front and back of house), food systems education, and consultancy for small food producers with a social purpose.