Eleni Zaude Gabre-Madhin is an Ethiopian economist, and former chief executive officer of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX).

She has had many years of experience working on agricultural markets – particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa – and has held senior positions in the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute (Washington, D.C.), and United Nations (Geneva and New York City).

Traders often failed to have access to sufficient credit, information about the market, transportation and other vital resources and contract compliance was difficult to enforce.

She became CEO of the new exchange in 2008, and argued that "(W)hen farmers can sell their crops on the open market and get a fair price, they will have much more incentive to be productive, and Ethiopia will be much less prone to food crises" .... and that the "ECX will allow farmers and traders to link to the global economy, propelling Ethiopian agriculture forward to a whole new level.

"[1] In February 2013, she became a director of Syngenta[2][3] and launched eleni LLC, a company intended to build and invest in commodity exchanges in emerging markets across the world, primarily in Africa.