Randall Cleland

Kottke-Cleland Program Manager

Randall E. Cleland. Mr. Cleland is from Atlanta, Georgia. He attended the University of Georgia, where he earned both a BS (1993) and MS (1996) in Agricultural and Applied Economics. During his academic career, he gained extensive experience developing quantitative models and forecasting economic trends in agriculture, and his work has been published in two peer-reviewed journals.

In December 1996, Mr. Cleland joined the trading division of Sara Lee Corporation, a global manufacturer and marketer of consumer products, as its Trading Manager and Staff Economist until he left the firm in December 2000. While at Sara Lee, he learned the meat business from the ground up, negotiating purchases of pork, beef, and poultry for national brands like Sara Lee, Hillshire Farm, Jimmy Dean, and Ball Park. In addition to procuring fresh meat, he managed the company’s freezer program, presented commodity programs to corporate clients, and developed economic forecasts to support the trading group’s fundamental direction. 

He  was registered as a Floor Broker with trading privileges on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (“CME”) from May 2001 through September 2003. After a brief hiatus, Mr. Cleland returned to Sara Lee in December 2003 as its Commodity Risk Manager, Meats, until his departure in December 2006. As Commodity Risk Manager, he managed Sara Lee’s $750 million annual commodity meat exposure, running the hedge book for this massive trading group. As before, his focus was on the livestock-based commodities and their inherent volatility.