David W. MacLennan (born 1958/59) is an American businessman, the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of

Cargill Cargill, Incorporated, is a privately held American global food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865, it is the largest privately held corporation in the United States in ter ...

. MacLennan received a BA in English from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

, followed by an MBA in Finance from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. MacLennan has been chairman and CEO of Cargill since 2013, when he succeeded Greg Page. Under MacLennan’s leadership, Cargill has faced numerous controversies and criticisms.

Criticism

In 2019, former U.S. Congressman

Henry A. Waxman Henry Arnold Waxman (born September 12, 1939) is an American politician who served as a United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative from California from 1975 to 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat ...

, in a report by

Mighty Earth The Center for International Policy (CIP) is a non-profit foreign policy research and advocacy think tank with offices in Washington, D.C. and New York City. It was founded in 1975 in response to the Vietnam War. The Center describes its mission ...

, called Cargill "the worst company in the world" and noted that it drives "the most important problems facing our world" (deforestation, pollution, climate change, exploitation) "at a scale that dwarfs their closest competitors."

Personal life

He is married to Kathleen MacLennan, and they have three adult children.

References

1950s births Living people Cargill people Amherst College alumni University of Chicago Booth School of Business alumni American chief executives of Fortune 500 companies {{US-CEO-stub