Solving World Hunger through Innovation | Part 1

Navigating Our World

Featuring Barron Segar, USA CEO of Nobel Peace Prizewinner World Food Program, and Mira Mehta, Founder/CEO, Tomato Jos

Solving world hunger—or “food insecurity”—is really hard. The solutions are not particularly sexy, and they require a very long-term outlook. We wanted to learn more about the problem and those who are trying to solve it.

In part 1 of this conversation, Brown Advisory's Emily High Daniels sat down with two leaders at opposite ends of the impact spectrum. Barron Segar, President and CEO of the World Food Program USA (the program was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize), is driving innovation and progress on a massive global scale. Mira Mehta is the Founder and CEO of Tomato Jos, a for-profit social enterprise whose mission is to make farming profitable and sustainable for smallholder farmers, while moving their communities toward the middle class. From their very different vantage points, Barron and Mira show us how scalable innovation and long-term thinking can translate into progress over time.

In part 2 (which will drop next week), we welcome two additional entrepreneurs (Ezinne Uzo-Okuro, CEO of Terraformers, and Manuela Zierau, Global Lead of H2Grow). Then Emily sits down with Brown Advisory’s Sid Ahl and Kirtika Challa, who leads the Tunisian advisory practice for frontier-market advisor CrossBoundary, to discuss the investment implications for clients.

Guests:
Barron Segar
CEO, World Food Program USA

Mira Mehta
Founder and CEO, Tomato Jos

Host:
Emily High Daniels
Strategic Advisor, Brown Advisory

Background Reading

• A Nigerian Tomato-Farming Business Shows the Human Impact of Private Investment, Invest, USAID, August 21,2020
• COVID-19 is Exacerbating Food Shortages in Africa, World Economic Forum, April 27, 2020
• United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger
• United Nations World Food Programme | Nigeria
• Hunger in America, Feeding America

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