When Judd O’Connor had the opportunity to join Corteva Agriscience, then Pioneer, in 1999, it was a pivotal time for innovation in the seed industry.

“Biotechnology was really entering into the fray at that point in time and the work, the R&D that was going on in the seed industry was so important to what was going to be the next decade two, three, four to where we are today in agriculture,” O’Connor said.

In his more than 25 years at Corteva, he’s seen transformative innovations become available to farmers, from scientific advancements to technologies based on nearly 100 years of agronomic data. Now, he’s helping Corteva look ahead to future generations of seed technology as executive vice president of the company’s seed business unit. He assumed the role in December 2024, succeeding Tim Glenn.

The agriscience company was formed in 2019 after DuPont Pioneer, DuPont Crop Protection and Dow Agrosciences spun off of DowDuPont to become a stand-alone company. Corteva invests about $4 million each day into research and development across the company and employs around 2,200 people at its Johnston campus, where the seed business is based. 

For the first few years of his career, O’Connor worked for American Cyanamid, a crop protection company. He said he often held responsibilities “I really wasn’t qualified” for.

“It shapes you a lot,” he said. “You get to learn things quicker earlier in your career.”

O’Connor said being prepared for the future as a leader is one lesson he’s taken from his career as well as leading people well and doing good work. 

“I look forward, and even as I look back, there is never going to be a stagnant point in our industry, in any industry, where you say, ‘We’re done,’ right? … For leaders to prepare themselves to manage change and to lead change versus [reacting] to change, I think is huge,” he said.

The Business Record sat down with O’Connor at Corteva’s Johnston campus to learn more about his career and new role.

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Before this role you served in several leadership roles at Corteva, including as president of the North America business. Can you tell me a little more about that role and what your main focuses were?

I guess first and foremost for us as a business is the farmer is at the center of everything that we do, right? We have a very unique go-to-market in that we’re one of a few companies that have a direct relationship with the farmer. Our people, our Pioneer agents have a direct relationship with the farmer and certainly work really hard to become an integrated part in those farmers’ operations in their decision-making process. So, that’s probably the first thing. The second piece would be as we brought new technologies into the industry, whether it be corn grown above ground or insect control, whether it be below-ground protection, herbicide tolerance in crops, you know, all that innovation that we were bringing through the pipeline at the time, after the farmer, that was the big focus is how we bring this innovation and how we drive in more productivity, more sustainability in the business.

You’ve now been with Corteva for 25 years, how have you seen its innovations and technology evolve?

If you unwind it 100 years, the first big breakthrough innovation, it happened right here in the state of Iowa, was making hybrid corn. We were the ones that did that, and we significantly accelerated the yield per acre of Iowa farm ground with hybrid crosses versus open pollinated corn. It took a number of years for the entire industry to adopt hybrid corn. It was new technology. Information flow wasn’t as readily and easily available like it is today with the push of a button and the entire world knows. I mean, you had to actually go out and knock on doors, right? So hybrid corn was absolutely the first technology, and I guess we can be proud to be the ones that can, you know, say we had the first piece of that. Then we evolved into plant breeding with better disease resistance, and plant breeding with better drought tolerance and plant breeding with all those pieces that come just from the plant breeding side. Then, next generation was around biotechnology and how can you, again, increase those yield and productivity levels on that same acre of ground and do it in a more sustainable way. I think looking forward, gene editing is one that we’re making huge investments in. We have all the optimism in the world. We’re making great strides with it today. It can take seven years to get a hybrid through the pipeline. It can take 15, 16 years to bring a GMO trait through the pipeline. Gene editing is going to allow us to do it in just a fraction of that and it’s just an extremely precise tool. It’s going to be the next breakthrough in terms of next-generation products.

Is Corteva currently developing gene editing solutions?

Our research and development team has been working with it for a number of years now and we’ve actually got products on the shelf ready to go and all kinds of product concepts that our scientists and R&D team are bringing through today, whether that be disease resistance, drought, more yield, reduced stature corn. There’s all kinds of different applications that we can do with gene editing, and not only just in plant breeding. I mean, this can be leveraged in biologicals. You’re seeing things being leveraged in the human health side and the animal health side.

What are some other focuses of Corteva’s R&D teams?

We operate in 100-plus countries around the world today, and I would say that nearly every product no matter where it’s located in the world is likely touched in some way by this facility throughout its life cycle and as we develop those products. This place is an anchor for us and our seed business. We have around 2,200 employees here on campus, and a third of them are scientists with advanced degrees that are operating up here above my level.

We have 3,000 employees in the state of Iowa, and this is the hub for our global seed business, the R&D. Some other spaces that we’re operating in are hybrid wheat. We brought hybrid corn to the table 100 years ago, roughly. Next year, 2026, we’ll be a 100-year-old company and we’ve cracked the code on hybrid wheat and we’re going to bring that into the market commercially here over the next few years. It’ll ramp up obviously but it will be there in 2026, 2027. We’ll have our first hybrid wheat that’ll go in the ground commercially. So you look at what hybridization did for corn and we’ve got some optimists that said, think about what we could do with wheat, which is the largest planted crop in the world. We’ve got a big initiative around biofuels right now and how can we be part of the solution. From a biofuel standpoint, we’re doing some work in the South with winter canola and leveraging our winter canola product line in a double crop situation with soybeans. So a farmer gets two crops in one year and you’ve got a high oil crop like canola that we can work with processors and up the ante on biofuels and our ability to provide sustainable aviation fuel and all those things.

Tell me more about how Corteva is looking at sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). What opportunities are there?

Winter canola, it’s focused there just from a standpoint of can you in a sustainable, renewable way from an ag perspective continue to be part of very specific things like SAF, but we’re already doing that today in a huge way with our ethanol industry in the state of Iowa and Midwest. Biofuels and the shift in energy demand that we’re going to see, we think we have a seat at the table on that and we’re in the beginning stages of working hard to be a part of that. 

What shifts in energy demand is Corteva watching?

Well, you’ve seen big shifts in solar, you’ve seen big shifts in wind. Drive around the state of Iowa. You see there’s been big investment in wind. And then sustainable renewable fuel sources like we have with ethanol today, like we have with biodiesel, like we have with now sustainable aviation fuel with the focus on that and some countries having mandates. So can ag and i.e., Corteva, be a pivotal part of enabling that? That’s the play, which means we’re going to probably have evolution in cropping systems, evolution in crops. We’re seeing that with cropping systems we’re testing here in the U.S. today, the products in the ground. We had the first harvest last summer. This will be our second harvest with expanded footprint and expanded acres with winter canola. Biofuels is a big focus for us, and how do we expand the footprint with nontraditional crops that could potentially even be a source, or a solution that we’re not doing today?

What are some of the challenges the regulatory environment can present for Corteva?

We consistently ask for science-based reliable regulation. Some of those things can change with the geopolitical environment, some of those things can change based on things other than science. So how do we keep focused on the fact that we’ve got great technologies that can do great things? And we want it to be fully and thoroughly and rigorously tested. But to invest on the behalf of our farmer customers for a decade and not have consistency or have geopolitical environments that don’t allow consistent and scientific-based regulatory environments creates challenges. It wouldn’t matter whether you talk to us, or Corn Growers Association, Soybean Growers Association, Farm Bureau. It’s a farmer-based challenge as well.

What other challenges does Corteva hear about from farmers and how are you working to address them?

It’s always about productivity. We’ve got a big effort from a decision sciences standpoint to say how do we leverage all the data that a farmer has and help them make better tools, whether it be on hybrid selection or fertility, agronomic practices, timing of when they make applications. We’ve been core and fundamental in high-touch agronomy since our existence started, so what are those key agronomic tools and practices that you can take this great genetic product that you’ve got here in seed and maximize it, right?

When have you had to manage change as a leader?

If you look at where we’re at with production agriculture today versus where we were when I started my career it’s not even identifiably the same. Technology in every way has really changed that. In the seed space, in the implement space, in data and tools that we have available. Recognizing how that change in evolution of agricultural practices is huge. Certainly, bringing three different legacy organizations into one Corteva — we were fortunate in that the cultures of the three different organizations were similar enough, and they were focused on agriculture and focused on farmers that the transition was good. But how do you bring all those years of history and legacy together and get to a common point? The opportunity for me to be directly involved in the integration efforts and standing up the new Corteva and shape what the structure of the organization needed to look like and who did we want to be, that was a privilege to get to be a part of that. It certainly shaped my thinking around change and change management. 

As Corteva continues to innovate, will there be opportunity to add employees or grow the footprint of the Johnston campus?

In terms of the work that we’re doing in the seed space, this is where we will be. We’re fully 100% committed to Johnston in terms of the ebbs and flows of the number of people in the needs of people. Obviously this is home base for our seed business. One of the other pieces is obviously how do we continue to access the very best talent in the world. We have people here that come from many, many different places around the world and have made Iowa home.