Sara Menker is founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence, a technology company that is bridging data gaps across the global agriculture sector, empowering decision makers and creating a more informed, connected, efficient and productive global agriculture industry. Gro Intelligence offers software that makes agricultural, weather and climate data easy to understand. She has used Gro Intelligence to investigate the impact of natural disasters, including droughts, on food supply. The reports inform companies on what and where to sell products, as well as supporting policy makers and insurance companies.

Prior to founding Gro, Menker was a vice president in Morgan Stanley's commodities group. She began her career in commodities risk management, where she covered all commodity markets, and she subsequently moved to trading, where she managed a trading portfolio. She left her job in Wall Street to use her skills in data analytics for social good.

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. 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. In 2018 Menker was named the Henry C. Gardiner Global Food Systems Lecturer. She has presented at the Rockefeller Foundation, X and The New York Times.

Menker is a trustee of the Mandela Institute For Development Studies (MINDS) and a trustee of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). She was named a Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2014 and is a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative of the Aspen Institute.

Business, Business Leaders, Women in Business, Empowerment, Influential Women, Women in Society, Women in Leadership, CEO, Start-Up Founder, Business Founders, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Africa, Agriculture, Agricultural Development Environment, Sustainability, Food industry, Leadership,