Newsweek's Women In the World: 125 Women Of Impact

Eleni Gebre-Madhin: Ethiopia's Food Security Whiz

As an undergrad at Cornell in the 1980s, Eleni Gabre-Madhin watched as famine killed millions in her homeland, even as parts of Ethiopia boasted a food surplus. Fast-forward to 2008, when Gabre-Madhin created her country’s first commodities exchange to better connect buyers and sellers in the hopes of solving the nation’s constant food crises. In three years the exchange has gone from a startup to trading an average of $20 million a day. Next up for Gabre-Madhin: replicating the model in countries across Africa—a vision that’s being backed by Morgan Stanley and the World Bank’s International Finance Corp.