Robert Lee, the son of a humble-living Korean family, has always despised wasting food. Following his graduation from the Stern School of Business, Lee secured an asset management career at J.P. Morgan. Shortly after, however, Lee exchanged the corporate world for nonprofits to help cease the incessant cycle of food wastage and starvation.

“I wanted to be a social entrepreneur since sophomore year in college, but the common consensus was that I should start a nonprofit after I was more established at a place like J.P. Morgan,” Lee said.

Lee attributes his understanding of food handling and management to his double major in finance and accounting, as well as his three-year presidency of Two Birds One Stone, a club dedicated to feeding the homeless. These experiences proved to be a foundation for the creation of the app Rescuing Leftover Cuisine.

“I took Two Birds One Stone and basically made it much more incentivized for others to get involved,” Lee said. “I didn’t see why it couldn’t happen outside the borders of NYU. I put structure and technology around it and took that idea to a competition through NYU Reynolds Program. We ended up using the money we won right after I graduated in May 2013.”

RLC gained immediate success and formed partners in SoHo before becoming formally corporate and has continued to grow. Lee is driven by the philosophy of every little bit counts, which he applies to RLC’s approach to volunteering.

“With our food rescue pick-ups, just because you have 5 or 10 pounds of food left over, we don’t think that’s insignificant,” Lee said. “That can feed five to 10 people. This also permeates through our volunteer experience — you can help out in 30 minute stints and feed someone who would otherwise starve.”

Crystal Li, a Tisch junior and current co-president of Two Birds One Stone, agreed that Lee’s past as the club president accounted for a smooth transition into the start of RLC.

“I think Rob’s experiences as club president for Two Birds One Stone ultimately inspired him to create RLC,” Li said. “He learned what it was like to run a food recovery organization with its many challenges and obstacles, and was able to build on his leadership skills.”

Lee’s goals for RLC are innumerable, ranging from national expansion to an RLC volunteering app, which will be released by the end of 2015.

“There are so many projects that we are involved in,” Lee said. “We are working with a farm in D.C. and a factory in Portland, which is ridiculous. We have branches starting all over the country. People are becoming more aware of the issues of food waste and food hunger and we are really glad that we can give a step-by-step way to create an impact in communities.”

Lee shared advice for others who wish to pursue altruistic goals.

“You should start now, don’t waste your time,” Lee said. “You never know where the initiative is going until you start learning. Although we are launching all kinds of initiatives to tackle food waste, most of them will be failures, honestly. But you learn from these failures and one of these initiatives, hopefully, will be successful. From failures you learn things, pick yourself up and create a solution that works.”

A version of this article appeared in the Thursday, Feb. 19 print edition. Email Zoe Thompson at [email protected].