Jen Mayer

Jen has lived all over the world, including over 15 years spent in different countries in Africa. She considers the Bay Area of the US as her place of origin and Harare, Zimbabwe, as her hometown. Jen studied English Literature as an undergraduate student at UC Riverside, but after spending time as an ag volunteer in CAR and Togo with the Peace Corps, she set herself on a path to a career in agriculture, ultimately leading her to obtain her MS in International Agriculture Development from UC Davis in 2003. After many years working on agriculture and markets in the international development sphere, Jen joined a local research trust, Bio Innovation Zimbabwe, and put that experience into practice, focusing on the commercialization of underutilized crops and plants for the Zimbabwe market. This eventually led Jen to start a small company called Hutano Foods that produced snacks and breakfast cereals for the Zim market, using those crops and plants as ingredients.