David MacLennan

Dave MacLennan has been chief executive officer of Cargill since 2013 and was first elected to the Cargill Board of Directors in 2008. He is the 9th CEO since Cargill was founded in 1865.

He began his Cargill career in 1991 in the Financial Markets Division, helping establish Cargill’s proprietary financial business in distressed asset investing and trading, serving in that capacity in the Minneapolis and London offices. After serving as Chief Financial Officer of the Financial Markets Division, he moved to Geneva to head Cargill Energy, which engaged in the trading, hedging, and merchandising of energy products for Cargill and its customers. He also supervised several businesses in Cargill Protein and later, Food Ingredients, before becoming Chief Financial Officer in 2008, and Chief Operating Officer in 2011. 

Prior to joining Cargill, he began his career as a runner, phone clerk, and risk manager in the futures and securities sector in Chicago, where he learned the financial and commodities trading businesses from the back to front office. He was a member of the Chicago Board of Trade and Board of Options Exchange, and obtained his Series 7 and 63 registrations. Later in his career, he was president of fixed income capital markets at USBancorp Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis.

Outside of Cargill, MacLennan serves on the boards of Ecolab, the Minnesota Business Partnership and the Board of Trustees of Amherst College. He has served on the boards of several public companies, and his non-profit board service has included Youth Frontiers and College Possible, in support of his passion for a focus on the needs of under-privileged youth and their access to education. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Amherst College and an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Chicago.