Donna Niles

Donna is the Global Partner Innovation Leader for Cargill’s McDonald’s business unit, where she works with McDonald’s to build long-term strategic partnerships, and leverages the innovation power of Cargill across enterprises, categories, and regions. Her aim is to help drive and create a bold innovation pipeline for the future, focusing on strategic customer needs, opportunity spaces, and growth. 

An explorer, connector, and technologist, Donna’s career at Cargill has spanned marketing and sales, supply chain, and commercial management. This broad platform of knowledge and experience has enabled partnerships with startups, innovators, and customers to create innovative solutions that strengthen Cargill’s market position and relationships. She most recently served as the long-term innovation leader for Cargill’s Protein North America business, developing a vision for the future, innovation pipeline, and steering enterprise-wide projects and opportunities across multiple businesses, functions, and geographies.  

Donna is a proud alumnus of the Moody College of Communications at The University of Texas at Austin (bachelor’s in journalism), and the Smith School of Business at The University of Maryland College Park (MBA). She is based in Wichita, Kansas, where she serves on the board of the United Way of the Plains. When she’s not spending time with her husband Andy and children Winston (8) and Lin (6), Donna enjoys cooking, traveling, anything outdoors, and anything active. 

More From The Author

What do you want to research today?