Margarita Louis-Dreyfus

The Louis Dreyfus Company is one of the world’s largest integrated agricultural trade houses, buying and processing foodstuffs from coffee to cotton worldwide. Margarita Louis-Dreyfus took control of the business after the death of her husband in 2009, and has steadily increased her ownership of the house since then. She now owns 96% after buying out the remaining Louis-Dreyfus family members in January 2019. But this year has been tumultuous: after appointing CEO Ian McIntosh in September 2018—the fifth CEO since 2011—the company launched a management shakeup of its business, putting new traders at the top of major business units. At the same time, profits rose 12% in 2018, helped in part by exporting record volumes of soy beans to China from Brazil, which has absorbed demand that would have gone to the U.S. if not for the U.S.-China trade war.

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