NEW YORK (TIP): A4 is honored to announce the recipients of our 2026 Annual Benefit awards: Padma Lakshmi will receive the Vanguard Award, and Yao King & White Rabbit Trust will receive A4’s Community Champion Award.
Padma Lakshmi is an Emmy-nominated producer, television host, food expert, and best-selling author, as well as one of Time Magazine‘s 100 Most Influential People (2023).
She is the creator and host/executive producer of “America’s Culinary Cup,” a new culinary competition show that premiered on CBS in spring 2026. Lakshmi is also creator of the Emmy-nominated and James Beard Foundation award-winning Hulu series “Taste the Nation.” Padma served as host/executive producer for 19 seasons of Bravo’s two-time Emmy-winning series “Top Chef,” which was nominated for 47 Emmys during her tenure, including her five nominations for Outstanding Host for a Reality-Competition Program.
Lakshmi is co-founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America (EndoFound) and an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Artist Ambassador for immigrants’ rights and women’s rights. Lakshmi was also appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Padma has written several books, including Easy Exotic; Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet; a memoir, The New York Times best-selling Love, Loss and What We Ate; The Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs; a NYT best-selling children’s book, Tomatoes for Neela; and Padma’s All American: Tales, Travels and Recipes from Taste the Nation and Beyond.
Additionally, Lakshmi is a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). www.padmalakshmi.com
Yao King is the founder and chief investment officer of YKAM, a multi-strategy hedge fund based in New York City, and the executive producer of Asian Comedy Fest. Known for nearly a decade of quiet, sustained work and investment in the AAPI creative community, now organized under White Rabbit Trust, his philanthropic work spans film, comedy, food, fashion, art, and literature. In 2018, he co-founded the #GoldOpen movement and led the East Coast efforts with Gold House in support of Asian-led films, and would go on to co-found the annual Asian Comedy Fest, now entering its eighth year. Since 2020, he has underwritten and hosted a house for AAPI filmmakers at Sundance Film Festival, executive-produced AAPI-led films that have premiered at Sundance and the Tribeca Film Festival, and championed and organized meaningful opportunities for creatives in our community in the most visible rooms across industries, from the CFDA Fashion Awards to the National Book Awards.
Away from the city, he runs a small farm rooted in regenerative agriculture, where he cultivates crops, keeps bees, produces his own maple syrup, and regularly hosts friends and members of the community. A graduate of MIT, Yao received the Karl Taylor Compton Prize, the Institute’s highest honor for devotion to community.
Be the first to comment