Sep 19, 2019

Rogge-Fidler named new president and CEO of Farm Foundation

Farm Foundation announced that Shari Rogge-Fidler will be joining the organization as president and CEO. Rogge-Fidler brings a breadth of executive, academic and managerial experience in production agriculture, business management, national and international finance, conservation and soil health issues. These skills align well with the varied and important work of the Farm Foundation.

“Weare very excited to have Shari join the Farm Foundation in this leadership role,” said Farm Foundation Board of Directors Chair Larkin Martin. “Her track record of strong leadership, combined with her deep agricultural knowledge makes Shari uniquely qualified to lead the Farm Foundation into the future.“

Rogge-Fidler is a fifth-generation farm owner from Nebraska, who began her career in London in financial services and then with the Boston Consulting Group. She and her family launched and grew a branded gourmet organic food company, where she was vice president of sales and marketing. She was president of Cambium Strategies, a company focused on helping food and agriculture organizations navigate secondary growth. 

At Cambium Strategies, she led diverse teams working on projects with ag-tech firms, as well as a multi-crop supply chain project in Ethiopia and a soil health strategy for large global NGOs. She was also interim CEO at Applied GeoSolutions, LLC, focusing on commercializing its geospatial decision tools for agriculture and soil health purposes. Most recently, Rogge-Fidler was CEO of Family Farms, LLC, serving approximately 1,000 farms across the U.S. and Canada.   

“I’m thrilled to be joining the Farm Foundation,” said Rogge-Fidler. “I have a real passion for food and agriculture. I look forward to the opportunity to help Farm Foundation grow-and to join an organization that does important work in the agriculture and food sectors, convening diverse groups of experts to work on important issues facing a wide variety of stakeholders.”

Rogge-Fidler received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of Kansas, with an emphasis on international finance. She will assume the Farm Foundation role on Sept. 30 and will be based out of the Chicago office.

“Shari is a talented executive and thoughtful leader. It’s exciting to have someone with her wide range of experiences joining the Farm Foundation team. We look forward to a bright future for the organization under her leadership,” said Martin.

Farm Foundation is an agricultural policy institute cultivating dynamic non-partisan collaboration to meet society’s needs for food, fiber, feed and energy. Since 1933, it has connected leaders in farming, business, academia, organizations and government through proactive, rigorous debate and objective issue analysis.