Mr. Ken Isley
Administrator, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service
Ken Isley was appointed administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) in March 2018. He leads the agency’s staff in Washington, D.C. and 93 offices around the world in expanding trade and export opportunities for American agriculture. Concurrent with his duties as FAS administrator, Isley chairs USDA’s Intra-Departmental Coordination Committee on International Affairs.
Isley most recently served as special adviser for Corteva Agriscience, the agriculture division of DowDuPont, and before that held various senior leadership roles at Dow AgroSciences, including vice president, general counsel, and head of the company’s global legal department. All told, he served nearly 29 years at Dow.
Isley grew up on his family’s farm in Iowa and holds a B.S. degree from the Iowa State University College of Agriculture and a J.D., with distinction, from the University of Iowa College of Law. He continues to own and manage grain and livestock operations in Iowa and Indiana.