--- description: Find out why Sara Menker is one of the 100 most influential people of 2021. title: Sara Menker: The 100 Most Influential People of 2021 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteb414e13e1c1895e/698a1cd086f68e92b06f04d8/sara-menker-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Sep 14, 2021 # Sara Menker by Rajiv J. Shah  Joshua Kissi for TIME Sara Menker has spent her whole life thinking about disaster. She was raised in Ethiopia during a famine that killed more than a million people. Uniquely prepared for the worst, Menker left Wall Street to help prevent it, starting [Gro Intelligence](https://time.com/collection/time100-companies/5950007/gro-intelligence/ "undefined") to leverage the latest advances in technology to tackle big challenges, including [hunger and climate change](https://time.com/5940733/climate-change-gro-intelligence-ceo-sara-menker/ "undefined"). As CEO, she helps clients use artificial intelligence and machine learning to convert data on the global agricultural ecosystem into actionable knowledge. Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change have given her plenty to work on as they have revealed how vulnerable people are to crises. By arming people with knowledge, Menker believes humanity can solve its most vexing challenges. But first, she told me in a conversation in 2018, we must find a “common language.” If anyone can find that common language in time to end hunger, prevent a climate catastrophe and avert other disasters—it’s Menker. _Shah is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095979/sara-menker/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095979/sara-menker/"},"headline":"Sara Menker","datePublished":"2021-09-14T17:33:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:15.160Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095979/sara-menker/","keywords":["TIME 100","franchise","T100 2021"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteb414e13e1c1895e/698a1cd086f68e92b06f04d8/sara-menker-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteb414e13e1c1895e/698a1cd086f68e92b06f04d8/sara-menker-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095979/sara-menker/","name":"Sara Menker"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME 100 Most Influential Companies: Gro Intelligence","description":"CEO Sara Menker talks to TIME about climate change and how Gro Intelligence is using its technology to better predict and assess potential risks and damage to communities affected by climate.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/3vS7VjhL/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2021-04-26T22:39:32.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3vS7VjhL.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095979/sara-menker/","duration":"PT2M57S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095979/sara-menker/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```