Sara Leedom has 25 years of executive experience growing and managing social impact organizations through Africa, India, and the US. Starting with SHOFCO as COO in early 2026, Sara supports the teams in areas of People & Culture, Technology, Legal, Operations/Supply Chain/Logistics.
Prior to coming to SHOFCO, Sara co-founded INKOMOKO, a social enterprise focused on financial inclusion for entrepreneurs, mostly refugees. In 2025, Financial Times named Inkomoko as the fastest growing company in East Africa, and the 8th fastest on the Continent, winning the Audacious Prize in 2025. For the past 13 years, Sara served as the Chief Operating Officer, growing the company to serve more than 100,000 entrepreneurs, with 750 staff in 30 offices in Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Chad. Inkomoko is the largest lender to refugees in Africa, with $50M loan fund providing capital directly to displaced entrepreneurs.
Prior to Inkomoko, Sara was in Mumbai, seconded by the Shell Foundation to IntelleGrow, a social impact debt fund in Mumbai; was a consultant to nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area; and served as Director of Strategy for the Level Playing Field Institute in California. She has worked in the areas of affordable housing development, sexual and reproductive health, and racial and economic justice.
Sara has an MBA from Oxford’s Said Business School, a BA in African Literature, and is an Echoing Green Fellow. In addition to Inkomoko, Sara serves on the Boards of Norrsken East Africa, the largest tech hub on the Continent backed by a $500M Swedish venture fund, and on the advisory board of True Moringa, a superfood company in Ghana, which improves the lives of women farmers while sequestering carbon and bringing organic products to a global market. She’s in investor and advisor in other women-run businesses, including Virunga Mountain Spirits in Rwanda. Sara is a beekeeper, freshly launching Iyaga Honey Ltd, and lives in Rwanda.