Dr. Sara Boettiger

Dr. Sara Boettiger works across public and private sectors to address complex challenges in food systems, global poverty, and climate change. Her career spans grantmaking, investment strategy, venture support and corporate leadership, including managing a large grant portfolio as Deputy Director at the Gates Foundation, advising sovereign wealth funds and development finance institutions on agriculture and climate investments at McKinsey, leading global sustainability and public affairs for Bayer Crop Science as a member of its executive leadership team, and advising early-stage climate and agriculture ventures on strategy and scale. Dr. Boettiger served as Chair of the CIMMYT Board of Directors, on the advisory board for the Export Import Bank of the US, taught economics at UC Berkeley, and advised 40+ national governments on policies and investments in agriculture, climate, and trade. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and advises multinational companies, startups and foundations. She holds a PhD in agricultural and resource economics.

Dr. Boettiger’s career began with a focus on global poverty and intellectual property rights, developing mechanisms for underserved populations to benefit from agricultural innovation. She co-founded two non-profits working on this issue, served two terms on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Councils alongside the head of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and advised philanthropies on intellectual property policy.

Her work then expanded from intellectual property to commercialization and product development for innovations intended to reach low-income populations, spanning customer insight, market analysis, business model design, distribution strategy, production planning, regulatory strategy, and pricing. She maintained a practice of spending time in the field with farmers, traders, millers, and regulators to bring on-the-ground insights into grant design and venture strategy. This work took her across Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

During her time as Deputy Director in Agricultural Development at the Gates Foundation she co-managed a $400 million annual grant and contract portfolio with $2.2 billion in active assets, led the Markets and Digital Innovation teams and supported a shift in Gates’ investment strategy focused on agriculture as an economic transformation lever in addressing nutrition and global poverty. As climate change became central in every investment, Dr. Boettiger’s work expanded to include both environmental and social outcomes.

She then moved from grantmaking into policy, regulatory, and investment advisory work. At McKinsey, she worked with the Nairobi office to advise national governments, international finance institutions, sovereign wealth funds, and development banks on agriculture, climate, and trade. She supported Kenyan President Ruto’s inaugural African Climate Summit, gave a keynote when Helios (sub-Saharan Africa’s largest private equity firm) opened its first climate fund, advised the Union Government of India on agricultural export strategies for Indian states, and worked as a direct advisor to low-income and emerging market national governments, gaining a unique on-the-ground view of national political economy.

Dr. Boettiger then joined the executive leadership team of Bayer Crop Science as Global Head of Sustainability and Public Affairs, leading a combined team of 200 across both functions, with government affairs responsibilities spanning more than 80 countries. During her tenure, the company’s carbon program expanded to bring 1.5 million acres of farmland under regenerative agriculture practices and the company made significant progress in shifting from seeing sustainability as a cost center to integrating the profit and loss impacts of investments and decisions.

Dr. Boettiger is trained in board governance and has served on the boards of public companies, banks, startups, international research institutes, and non-profits. She was Chair of the Board of Directors of CIMMYT (the international agricultural research center built on Norman Borlaug’s legacy work, with staff in 88 countries), served two terms on the advisory board of the Export Import Bank of the United States, and was a director of Bayer Crop Science’s subsidiary in India.

Since 2021, Dr. Boettiger has worked as an independent advisor. At Harvard Kennedy School, she runs an annual senior leadership conference bringing together chief executives, government leaders, consumer advocates, farmers, investors, foundation heads, and academics to address current issues in food, agriculture, and climate. She advises several startups working in the climate, genetics, and artificial intelligence spaces, advises the Gates Foundation nutrition team on co-financing strategy, and serves on the Board of the Eleanor Roosevelt Center.

Her speaking engagements include the White House, the G20, the US Federal Reserve, Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School, and the World Food Prize. She has published in Nature Biotechnology, Scientific American, the MIT Innovations Journal, and the Journal of International Biotech Law.