Sara Menker

Sara Menker
Menker in 2017
Born
Ethiopia
Alma materMount Holyoke College
Columbia University
OccupationEntrepreneur
EmployerGro Intelligence
AwardsYoung Global Leaders

Sara Menker is an Entrepreneur and the former CEO of Gro Intelligence, a company that uses artificial intelligence to forecast agricultural and climate trends.[1] She is a trustee of the Mandela Institute for Development Studies and was elected one of the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders.

Early life

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Menker grew up in Ethiopia.[2] Her parents were middle class and she attended a private school in Addis Ababa.[2] In her time in Ethiopia, she was exposed to the effects of poverty and famine.

Education

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During her high school career, she met an admissions officer from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts,[2] which she ultimately decided to attend. There, she got her degree in Economics and African Studies.[3] She later attended the London School of Economics for graduate studies and received her master's degree at Columbia University.[4]

Career

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Menker started her career in commodities risk management at Morgan Stanley.[5] She eventually moved through Morgan Stanley to portfolio trading and management.[5] 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.[3] She left her job in Wall Street in 2014 to use her skills in data analytics for social good.[6] So, she founded Gro Intelligence, a company that leverages artificial intelligence to forecast agricultural trends.[1]

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 financial crisis or dot-com bubble crash.[3] 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.[2] In 2014 Menker established Gro Intelligence, a data-driven platform which connects food market around the world.[3][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][3] 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][4] 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]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Gro Intelligence: Team". gro-intelligence.com. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
  2. ^ a b c d Gelles, David (2022-01-07). "'I Know What the End of the World Looks Like'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
  3. ^ a b c d e Bendix, Aria. "This entrepreneur left Wall Street to count the world's calories. Now she's warning of a global food disaster equal to the financial crisis". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  4. ^ a b "Sara Menker, Gro Intelligence Inc: Profile and Biography". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
  5. ^ a b "Sara Menker Biography | Booking Info for Speaking Engagements". www.allamericanspeakers.com. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
  6. ^ Mohammed, Omar (18 September 2015). "Reliable data is the answer to Africa's $1 trillion agriculture opportunity". Quartz Africa. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  7. ^ "Sara Menker: How Can We Farm Enough Food to Feed the World?". NPR.org. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  8. ^ "A 214-Trillion-Calorie Deficit: Global Food Demand Will Surpass Supply". AgWeb - The Home Page of Agriculture. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  9. ^ "Big Data". www.selamtamagazine.com. 2017-11-02. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  10. ^ "Big Data". www.selamtamagazine.com. 2017-11-02. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  11. ^ Wells, Peter (2019-03-14). "Gro Intelligence looks to reap rewards from crop data". Financial Times. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  12. ^ Paynter, Ben (2019-05-22). "Meet the Ethiopia-born Morgan Stanley vet who's using AI and data to revolutionize agricultural trading". Fast Company. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  13. ^ a b Affairs, Chicago Council on Global (2016-04-28). "Guest Commentary – Gro Intelligence: Deciphering a Drought with Data". Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  14. ^ Menker, Sara (5 October 2017), A global food crisis may be less than a decade away, retrieved 2019-06-11
  15. ^ "Menker named fifth speaker in Henry C. Gardiner Global Food Systems Lecture series". www.k-state.edu. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  16. ^ K-State (2018-10-11), Sara Menker | Henry C. Gardiner Global Food Systems Lecture, retrieved 2019-06-11
  17. ^ X, the moonshot factory (2014-06-27), Google I/O 2014: Sara Menker - making food cheap and abundant globally, retrieved 2019-06-11
  18. ^ The Rockefeller Foundation (2018-10-18), Sara Menker in Conversation With Raj Shah | Changemakers Series, retrieved 2019-06-11
  19. ^ The New York Times Conferences (2019-03-06), Harvesting Data, retrieved 2019-06-11
  20. ^ "Sara Menker". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  21. ^ Forum, the World Economic; Economics, is a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative of the Aspen Institute Sara received a B. A. in; College, African Studies at Mount Holyoke; Economics, the London School of; Menker, an M. B. A. from Columbia University Sessions Keynote with Sara Menker Sara MenkerSara; CEO; Intelligence, Gro. "Speaker: Sara Menker: Data science + business analytics training: Strata Data Conference". conferences.oreilly.com. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  22. ^ "Sara Menker". CogX 2019. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  23. ^ Williams, Chad (September 16, 2021). "Africans who made TIME's 100 Most Influential People 2021". Independent Online. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  24. ^ "The Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst List". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
  25. ^ Watson, Elaine (2024-02-23). "Exclusive: Ag insights platform Gro Intelligence unable to make payroll, replaces founder with new CEO". AgFunderNews. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  26. ^ Watson, Elaine (1 June 2024). "Ag insights platform Gro Intelligence is closing down". AgFunderNews. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
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