Anastasia Cole Plakias is co-founder and Chief Impact Officer of Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm. An accomplished public speaker, award-winning writer, and published photographer, Anastasia is a passionate and outspoken crusader for fresh, healthy foods and greener, more sustainable cities. She works to leverage Brooklyn Grange as a platform for positive conversations about food and farming, and a resource for community building and education.

Her love of food began early, cooking up elaborate meals in the tiny galley kitchen of her family’s NYC apartment. After working as a freelance writing for magazines, Anastasia spent several years in the corporate offices of an Italian restaurant group and wine brand, eating her way through the menus at some of New York City’s best restaurants and food carts. As a founding partner of Brooklyn Grange, she has run the business’ produce sales, managed its CSA program, created its Events department, and manages communications and external affairs. Her focus on details has been crucial to the smooth operations of the business as it has grown from year to year.

A Co-founder of the non-profit, City Growers, on whose board she spent nine years as a member, she presented alongside the organization’s Founding Director at TedX Long Island City. In 2014 and 2015, she was an instructor of Natural Gourmet Institute’s Sustainable Farming Certificate Course, and regularly teaches a workshop aimed at entrepreneurs interested in launching their own urban farming business. An energetic and inspiring speaker, she has presented to audiences at the 2019 InTents Business conference in San Diego, CA; the 2018 Positive Economy Forum in Le Havre, France; the 2017 Potluck Hospitality Conference in Los Angeles; the 2016 High Water Women Impact Investing conference; the 2014 Energivie Summit in Strasbourg, France; the 2013 Slow Food NYC/Northeast Organic Farmer’s Alliance NY Producer’s Conference, several Northeast Organic Farmers Association conferences, and in 2011, the Museum of Natural History. In 2016, Anastasia published a book about the business, The Farm on the Roof: What Brooklyn Grange Taught us About Entrepreneurship, Community, and Growing a Sustainable Business (Avery Press, April, 2016); she also narrated the audio book. In 2017, Anastasia was named as one of the NYC Food Policy Center’s “40 Under 40” individuals working to transform the food system.

When Anastasia isn’t zipping from farm to farm on her bicycle or leading a tour for a visiting delegation of city planners, she loves to tinker with kitchen projects in her Ditmas Park apartment, or hike a high peak in the Catskills.