Sara Menker

Menker grew up in Ethiopia.^[1] Her parents were middle class and she attended a private school in Addis Ababa.^[1] In her time in Ethiopia, she was exposed to the effects of poverty and famine.

During her high school career, she met an admissions officer from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts,^[1] which she ultimately decided to attend. There, she got her degree in Economics and African Studies.^[2] She later attended the London School of Economics for graduate studies and received her master's degree at Columbia University.^[3]

Menker began her career in commodities risk management at Morgan Stanley.^[4] She eventually moved through Morgan Stanley to portfolio trading and management.^[4] Throughout her work at Morgan Stanley, the issue of food insecurity was constantly on her mind. During her time there, Menker became interested in farmland investments.^[2] She left her job in Wall Street in 2014 to use her skills in data analytics for social good.^[5] So, she founded Gro Intelligence, a company that leverages artificial intelligence to forecast agricultural trends.^[6]

She became concerned by threat of a global food crisis, and started to investigate how Africa could mitigate the Earth's growing demands for food.^[7] She estimated that by 2030 food shortages could be as significant as the 2008 financial crisis or dot-com bubble crash.^[2] Menker predicts that the world could face a 214 trillion calorie deficit.^[8] This is due to systemic issues in the food supply chain, as well as a general increase in population.^[1] In 2014 Menker established Gro Intelligence, a data-driven platform which connects food market around the world.^[2][9][10] Gro Intelligence includes information such as the cost of avocado exports from Mexico and popular coffee beans, and uses artificial intelligence to make predictions about trends in food prices.^[11][2] Gro Intelligence offer software that attempts to make agricultural, weather and climate data easy to understand. The data is combined with satellite imagery and creates over 1,000 models a day.^[12] She has used Gro Intelligence to investigate the impact of natural disasters, including droughts, on food supply.^[13] The reports inform companies on what and where to sell products, as well as supporting policy makers and insurance companies.^[13]

In 2017 Menker delivered a TED talk A global food crisis may be less than a decade away, which has been watched over 1.5 million times.^[14][3] In 2018 Menker was named the Henry C. Gardiner Global Food Systems Lecturer.^[15][16] She has presented at the Rockefeller Foundation, X and The New York Times.^[17][18][19]

Menker is a trustee of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture and the Mandela Institute for Development Studies. She was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2014.^[20] She is also a member of The Aspen Institute African Leadership Initiative.^[21] Menker is involved with Cognition X, the artificial intelligence information platform.^[22] In 2021, she was included in the Time 100, Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.^[23] In 2021, Menker was selected as a Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst.^[24]

In February 2024, Menker was replaced as CEO of Gro Intelligence^[25] and in May 2024, the company announced it was closing down.^[26]