Shawna Nelson is Organic Valley’s fourth CEO in La Farge

Organic Valley’s March 19, 2025 release, datelined La Farge, Wisconsin, announced Shawna Nelson as the cooperative’s fourth CEO, effective March 28, 2025. The release calls Organic Valley America’s largest organic farmer-owned cooperative and says she is the first woman to be chief executive in the cooperative’s history. It says she started at Organic Valley in 2005 as an intern and later worked in marketing, sales analysis, recruitment, employee relations, field operations, and dairy pool management.

The release says she took the role as outgoing CEO Jeff Frank left to become chief executive of Monogram Foods. It says she holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and resides in La Farge, Wisconsin. The release’s subheading describes a co-op of more than 1,600 organic family farms. The about section says the cooperative was founded in 1988 and is owned by over 1,600 organic family farms.

Organic Valley’s company blog says she began as an intern on May 31, 2005, and that she is the fourth CEO and the first woman in the job. The March 19, 2025 release is the source for the appointment date. The blog is the source for the May 31, 2005 start.