Episode 197, Hardy, Boy he is a mystery, Guest Cordell Hardy

Dr. Cordell Hardy currently serves as Core R&D Leader for Cargill, Inc. Appointed in January 2024, he and the Core R&D organization have responsibility for advancing foundational scientific knowledge and key technical capabilities critical to Cargill’s long-term growth. Together with other members of Cargill’s R&D Leadership Team, Cordell will champion Cargill’s ‘One R&D’ strategy, partnering across the organization for optimal positioning of core and embedded R&D capabilities in driving transformational developments for Cargill enterprises. Prior to joining Cargill, Cordell spent 20 years with 3M Company, most recently as Senior Vice President, Corporate R&D Operations. Appointed in January 2020, in this role he led a functionally and geographically diverse solid-line reporting organization responsible for international enterprise technical infrastructure and support. Examples included product stewardship, pilot processing, analytical laboratories, digital content creation, laboratory safety, external collaboration, and others. Reporting to 3M’s Chief Technology Officer and serving as a core member of the Corporate Technical Operating committee for 3M, Cordell’s organization included hundreds of employees in dozens of countries and provided compliance support for over $10B in sales annually. Cordell also spent four years as Global R&D Vice President for 3M’s $1.8B Commercial Solutions Business, where he led an organization of product development, application engineering, quality/regulatory, and product continuity specialists supporting the global business and its sales in 70+ countries. This role was very much the collaborate-invent-commercialize business and technical leadership role typically filled by industrial technical leaders; the product roadmap Cordell’s team helped define has been key in Commercial Solutions Division becoming one of 3M’s fastest-growing divisions today. Cordell has also served in numerous other leadership and individual contributor roles through his 3M career. In addition, Cordell’s contribution on previous Corporate Boards has shown a trend of dramatically positive organization outcomes connected directly to enterprise governance and strategy. Among the examples are the acquisition of CyberOptics, Inc. by Nordson for $416 million, or $54/share, a price premium of approximately 45% over the 6-month trailing stock price, despite rapidly softening consumer electronics market fundamentals. Cordell joined the board in January 2022 and served on the audit committee, with the acquisition completing in November 2022. Cordell also serves as Chairman of the Board of Minnesota Community Care, the state’s largest federally qualified health clinic. Servicing tens of thousands of patient visits annually and generating over $40 million in revenues, Cordell partnered with the Board and Executive Officer to effect significant profitability improvements as well as extensive personnel changes within the organization. Cordell has a B.S. and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Florida A&M (1998) and the University of Minnesota (2003), respectively. He and his wife Amelia have four children.