SHARI ROGGE-FIDLER
CEO WITH AN ENTREPRENEURIAL OUTLOOK
AND FARM BACKGROUND HEADS FAMILY
FARMS LLC.
S
hari Rogge-Fidler is
a former investment
banker, strategy and
agribusiness consul-
tant, cofounder of an
organic food company, and
a fifth-generation farmer
from Nebraska.
She’s also the CEO of
Illinois-based Family Farms,
LLC. This unique company
provides financial manage-
ment and consulting services
to family farming operations
covering 1.7 million acres in
the U.S. and Canada. Rogge-
Fidler succeeds cofounder
and longtime CEO Allen
Lash, who retired in 2018.
She takes the reins as
all farmers face growing
challenges, including lower
prices and higher input costs.
Before heading Family
Farms LLC,, Rogge-Fidler
managed her own agribusi-
NAME: Shari Rogge-Fidler
TITLE: CEO of Family Farms LLC
BACKGROUND: A graduate of
the University of Kansas with
an MBA from Harvard
University, Rogge-Fidler has
international experience as
well as credentials in
value-added agriculture as she
heads Family Farms, LLC. She
worked abroad, first as an
investment banker in London
and then across Europe with
the Boston Consulting Group, a
global management consulting
powerhouse.
8 Successful Farming at Agriculture.com |August 2019 Illustration: Lauren Crow
ness consulting company,
Cambium Strategies. She
has served on corporate
boards, that of including
Farm Credit Mid-America.
All the while, she has
remained involved in the
Rogge family’s farm near
Auburn, Nebraska, and the
family recently celebrated
150 years as a family farm.
SF: How did it happen that
you founded, along with your
parents, an organic food
company in the 1990s?
SRF: Wanda’s Nature Farm
Foods was a response to
what was happening in the
marketplace at the time.
Organics were taking off
and bread machines had
become popular. Wanda is
my mom, and she developed
the organic wheat-flour
recipes for breads, pizza
crusts, focaccia, and other
things. We converted some
of our farming operations
to organic grains in order to
overcome a lack of supply at
the time. We sold the com-
pany in 2000, but the brand
still exists under the Wanda’s
name with products for sale
on Amazon and elsewhere.
SF: You represent the
fifth generation of your
family farm?
SRF: Yes. The day-to-day
farm operations of about
4,000 acres of irrigated
corn and soybeans involve
my parents, my older
brother, and my uncle.
Our family farm faces many
of the challenges that other
family farms do, including
whether to diversify produc-
tion, when to acquire more
land and access capital for
growth, and how to involve
the next generation in family
farming. So, I bring that un-
derstanding to my new role.
SF: How does your experience
help you plot the future of
an organization like Family
Farms Group?
SRF: I’m very aligned with
the vision of helping family
farms succeed for genera-
tions to come in the face of
significant changes. Family
farms need tools and strate-
gies to navigate the econom-
ic pressures in the industry.
Tools and strategies include
our existing resources such
as coaching and
training. I
intend to
expand
in the
four
areas
of access to capital, land,
value-added markets, and
innovative business models.
With my background with
food companies and organ-
ics, we will be pursuing
more opportunities in that
arena.
SF: Should we expect that
the members of Family Farms
Group will move from mostly
commodities to value-
added products?
SRF: The group has
members who grow
commodity corn and
soybeans and members who
specialize in organics or
other value-added products
and services. We have a good
mix. I’m fortunate to be able
to build upon a strong
foundation of progressive
farms. The com-
pany’s mission is
Keeping
Families on
the Farm,
and that’s
what I’m
here to
help do
every
single
day.
By Des Keller
q a THE SUCCESSFUL INTERVIEW
