Sarah Buchner Ph.D.
Founder and CEO
Trunk Tools

Sarah Buchner is the founder and CEO of Trunk Tools, an AI platform for the construction market. It uses AI to organize unstructured data, generate insights, and automate workflows. Buchner founded the company in 2015 as a construction finance technology service firm, but it has evolved, launching the AI platform in 2024. She refers to AI as "IA" — Intelligence Augmentation — and believes it can “supercharge” construction professionals by providing the right information at the right time.
Buchner started in construction as a 12-year-old carpenter's apprentice in her family’s firm in Austria, but switched to the general contracting when she was 20. She worked her way up from project manager to group leader, running major projects across Europe. She also has pursued education throughout her construction career and has earned several degrees, including an MS in architectural engineering, a Ph.D. in data science/civil engineering and an MBA from Stanford University, which she says kickstarted her entrepreneurial career. She says her Ph.D. research and a fatality on one of her jobsites made her realize that she could have a greater impact by developing disruptive technology to make construction safer and more efficient, which led to the birth of Trunk Tools. Buchner and her company are based in New York City. She has been named a Forbes 30 Under 30, and ENR Top Young Professionals honoree.