Sarah Botham

Sarah Botham is a marketing and public relations consultant with clients in the science, agriculture, lifestyle, and tourism industries. She is also an entrepreneur, writer, and educator. As a faculty associate for the Department of Life Sciences Communication, Sarah brings a unique blend of business acumen and agriculture marketing and communications experience to the classroom. She teaches classes on agricultural marketing, advertising, and print & electronic media design for the life sciences, among other courses.

She began her career as a daily newspaper reporter and then left the newspaper business to pursue a position in the political arena, working as a media analyst, writer, and photographer in Wisconsin’s Assembly Caucus. Following a two-year stint as managing editor of InBusiness magazine in Madison, she launched Botham, INK., a marketing and public relations consulting firm that specializes in branding and strategic planning for businesses. She is also the director of marketing for her husband’s business, Botham Vineyards & Winery, president and founder of Acala Farms, a food products business launched in 2012 and president and founder of WiscoBoxes, an e-commerce gift box company that features products sourced exclusively from Wisconsin’s artisan and iconic growers, producers, and manufacturers.

As advisor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison student chapter of the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA), Botham oversees the organization’s activities and functions as instructor and competition coach for its student marketing team. She was recognized as Outstanding Student Advisor by the NAMA national organization in 2008 – and again in 2021 – and has helped the team earn numerous national championships and associated awards. Under her guidance, the NAMA marketing team has placed in the top four nationally in 15 of 19 years, including national championship honors in 2016, 2018, and 2020 and brought home tens of thousands of dollars in student scholarships.

Botham is the recipient of the 2018 WALSAA Outstanding Advisor Awards and a 2017 recipient of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences award for Mentoring Undergraduates in Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities.