Leadership | About Us | John Deere US (2023)

Leanne Caret is executive vice president and senior advisor for The Boeing Company and a member of the company’s Executive Council.

Most recently, Caret served as president and chief executive officer of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, which provides solutions for defense, government, space, intelligence, and security customers worldwide. Countries beyond the United States where Defense, Space & Security has prominent operations include Australia, India, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom. In 2021, Boeing’s revenue from defense and space platforms and services exceeded $33 billion.

Caret was previously president of the company’s Global Services & Support organization; Defense, Space & Security chief financial officer; vice president and general manager of Vertical Lift; vice president of H-47 Programs; and general manager of Global Transport & Executive Systems. She is a second-generation Boeing employee who started working for the company in 1988.

Fortune magazine named Caret to its Most Powerful Women list in 2021 for the fifth consecutive year. In addition to being a 2019 inductee of the Women in Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame, Caret is a Royal Aeronautical Society Fellow and an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Associate Fellow. She is also on the George W. Bush Institute’s Women’s Initiative Policy Advisory Council; the board of directors for the Kansas State University Foundation; the board of directors for Deere & Company; and the board of directors for FIRST, a leading youth-serving nonprofit advancing STEM education.

Caret has a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Kansas State University and a Master of Business Administration from Wichita State University. She also earned certifications from Harvard University in the Program for Leadership Development and the International Security Defense Program, and she completed the Integral Leadership Program at the University of Notre Dame.

Tami Erwin is Executive Vice President and Group Chief Executive Officer of Verizon Business Group, a division of Verizon Communications, Inc. The group headed by Erwin provides services and products for business and government clients around the world and has sales of more than $30 billion.

Originally from Seattle, Washington, Erwin joined Verizon in the late 1980s as a customer service representative. In subsequent years, her positions included Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of wireless operations.

Erwin serves on the Verizon foundation board and the Paley Media Center board of trustees.

Alan C. Heuberger is a Senior Investment Manager at Cascade Asset Management Company, the office responsible for managing the financial assets of the Gates family and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.

At Cascade, Heuberger provides oversight on a variety of direct private equity and real asset portfolio investments, including the firm’s agriculture investments, which comprise farmland, farm production and processing businesses, and various public equity positions, including Deere & Company.

Heuberger serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of America's Foundation for Chess, as Vice Chair of the Financial Economics Institute Board of Advisors at Claremont McKenna College, and as an Investment Committee Member of The Seattle Foundation.

Heuberger received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Mathematics from Claremont McKenna College. He also has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

Charles O. Holliday, Jr. retired in 2008 as Chief Executive Officer and in 2009 as Chairman of DuPont after 36 years of service. He also previously served as Chairman of the board of Bank of America from 2010 to 2014 and as Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell plc from 2015 to 2021.

Holliday's career at DuPont began as an engineer in manufacturing and served in multiple roles at seven different locations, including President of DuPont Asia Pacific based in Tokyo, Japan. He was named CEO in 1998 and served in that role for 11 years.

In addition to serving on the Deere & Company board, Holliday serves on the board of Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). He is a licensed Professional Engineer and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the UK Royal Society of Engineering.

He previously served as Chairman of the following organizations: U.S. Council on Competitiveness, United Nations Sustainable Energy for All, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Catalyst, U.S. Business Council, and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

Holliday graduated from the University of Tennessee with a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. He received honorary doctorates from Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York; Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland; and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.

Michael O. Johanns is retired from the United States Senate, where he served as a Senator from Nebraska from 2009 until 2015. In the 111th-113th Congresses, his committee assignments included Agriculture, Appropriations, Banking, Commerce, Veterans Affairs, Indian Affairs, and Environment & Public Works.

Prior to his term in the United States Senate, Johanns was the United States Secretary of Agriculture from 2005 until 2007. He was twice elected Governor of Nebraska (1999-2005), served two terms as Mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska (1991-1998) and, after serving as a Judicial Law Clerk for Nebraska Supreme Court Justice Hale McCown from 1974 to 1975, he practiced law with private firms in Nebraska until 1991.

In addition to serving on the Deere & Company board, Johanns is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont, Corteva.

Johanns earned his B.A. from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota and his J.D. from Creighton University School of Law. In February 2016, his Presidential nomination as a new board member of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a bilateral United States foreign aid agency, was confirmed by the United States Senate.

Clayton M. Jones retired in July 2013 as the Chief Executive Officer and in July 2014 as the Chairman of Rockwell Collins, Inc. He served as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer beginning in June 2001.

Jones joined Rockwell International in 1979. He received a Rockwell-sponsored fellowship in 1982 to participate in the White House Executive Exchange Program. In 1988, Jones was named Vice President of Aerospace Government Affairs and Marketing at Rockwell Government Operations in Washington, D.C. In 1995, he was appointed Corporate Senior Vice President for Government Operations and International at Rockwell Government Operations in Washington, D.C. Later that year, he was named Vice President and General Manager for Collins Air Transport Division in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1998, Jones was appointed President of Rockwell Collins and Corporate Officer and Senior Vice President of Rockwell International.

Besides serving on Deere's Board, Jones is on the Board of Directors for Rockwell Collins, Inc. and Cardinal Health, Inc. His other memberships include the Board of Directors for General Aviation Manufacturers Association and Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. He's a member of The Business Council and the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee and an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Jones graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1971 with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science. He received an MBA from George Washington University in 1986.

He served in the U.S. Air Force as a fighter pilot from 1971 to 1979.

Greg Page is Chairman of Corteva, Inc. (agricultural seeds, crop protection products, and digital solutions). Past positions at Cargill, Inc. include serving as Executive Director from 2015 to 2016, Executive Chairman from 2013 to 2015, Chief Executive Officer from 2007 to 2013 and President from 2000 to 2007. He was elected to the Cargill Board of Directors in 2000 and elected Chairman of the Board in 2007.

Page joined Cargill in 1974 as a trainee assigned to the Feed Division. Over the years, he held a number of positions in the United States and Singapore. Page worked with the start-up of a poultry processing operation in Thailand, the beef and pork processing operations of Cargill's Excel subsidiary in Wichita, Kansas, and the Financial Markets Group in Minneapolis.

Page serves as a member of the board of directors of Eaton Corporation, 3M Company, and is non-executive Chairman of the Board of Corteva Agriscience. He is past-chair of the board of Cargill, Inc., Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, past president of the Northern Star Council of the Boy Scouts of America and continues to serve on both boards as well as the board of Alight (formerly known as the American Refugee Committee).

Page received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of North Dakota. He was born in Bottineau, N.D.

Sherry M. Smith is the former Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Supervalu Inc., a $35 billion grocery company headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. She has 25 years of experience in the grocery industry, progressing through various financial management positions including Treasurer, Corporate Controller, and Senior Vice President of Finance. Smith has played a critical leadership role in several of the company's strategic initiatives, including acquisitions and business transformation activities.

In addition to being a director on Deere & Company's board, Smith serves on the Board of Directors of Piper Jaffray Companies and Anywhere Real Estate Inc.

Smith is a certified public accountant. She has a Bachelor's degree in Accounting from St. Cloud State University.

Dmitri L. Stockton is a retired GE Company Senior Vice President and the former Chairman, President, and CEO of GE Asset Management, a global asset management company with over $100 billion in assets under management across investment vehicles that include private equity, real estate, hedge funds, active equities, and fixed income. He served as an Officer of GE Company for over a decade and was one of its leaders on the organization’s Corporate Executive Council. In his final post, he supported GE as a Special Advisor following the sale of GE Asset Management.

Stockton spent a total of 30 years with General Electric, including 24 years at GE Capital, where he architected the restructuring of the approximately 40,000-employee global banking business at the depth of the financial crisis. His turnaround efforts drove record profitability of $1.85 billion in 2010. Formerly, he served as President and CEO for GE Consumer Finance in Central and Eastern Europe, CEO for GE Capital Bank in Switzerland, Managing Director for GE Capital Commercial Real Estate, and Chief Risk Officer for GE Capital Mortgage Corporation. For a decade of his GE tenure, Stockton lived and worked abroad in three different countries.

In addition to serving on the Deere & Company Board of Directors, Stockton is a Director of Target Corporationand Ryder Systems Inc. He is also a member of the College of Business and Economics Executive Advisory Council at North Carolina A&T State University. Stockton was previously a Board Director for Stanley Black and Decker, American Family Insurance, Synchrony Financial, Bank BPH, Garanti Bank, BAC Credomatic, A Better Chance, Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Georgetown University Board of Regents and GE Foundation.

Stockton earned a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University and he is a graduate of GE’s Financial Management Program.

Sheila G. Talton is President and Chief Executive Officer of Gray Matter Analytics in Chicago, Illinois, a position she has held since 2013.

Prior to her current position, she was President and CEO, SGT Ltd.; Vice President, Cisco Systems, Inc.; Area Vice President, Consumer Products, Electronic Data Systems Corp.; and President, Global Business Process Innovations Services, Electronic Data Systems Corp.

Besides serving on the Deere & Company board, Talton is a director of OGE Energy Corporation and Sysco Corporation. She also serves the Northwestern Memorial Foundation, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and the Chicago Urban League. Talton was previously a Board Director for Wintrust Financial Corporation.

Talton received a B.S. in marketing with a minor in speech communication from Northern Illinois University and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.