Kevin Pieh

Chief Executive Officer Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery

Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026

Executive Summary

Kevin Pieh is Chief Executive Officer of Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery, a dairy cooperative in Ellsworth, Wisconsin, the town officially recognised as the “Cheese Curd Capital of Wisconsin”. The cooperative is owned by about 180 farming families and employs around 350 people across three locations. Pieh is a finance executive by training. He joined Ellsworth as chief financial officer in 2022, became interim CEO in September 2024 and was named CEO that December. Before Ellsworth he worked in finance at the farmer-owned cooperative Land O’Lakes, and before that in investment management at Ameriprise Financial.

Career Highlights

• Chief Executive Officer of Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery since December 2024, after serving as interim CEO from September 2024.
• Chief Financial Officer of Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery from 2022.
• Leadership positions at Land O’Lakes in Dairy Foods, Corporate Finance and Truterra, including finance lead for the foodservice, retail cheese and Kozy Shack pudding business lines.
• Helped manage a $30 billion asset portfolio for Ameriprise Financial’s insurance and annuities business, including through the 2008 financial crisis.
• Finance graduate of Bethel University, class of 2006.

Professional Journey

Pieh graduated from Bethel University in Minnesota in 2006 with a degree in finance and went into corporate finance at Ameriprise Financial, where he helped manage a $30 billion asset portfolio for the insurance and annuities business. The 2008 financial crisis, when mortgage-backed securities and other assets fell sharply, gave him what he has called a crash course in risk management. He earned an MBA while at Ameriprise.

He then stepped away from financial services and spent about two years working for a small furniture business in rural northwest China. He has said the experience of working with a physical product in a rural community reshaped what he wanted from his career: something tangible, a product he could see on a shelf. Back in Minnesota he joined the finance team at Land O’Lakes, where he learned how a cooperative is structured and governed. He went on to hold leadership positions in its Dairy Foods, Corporate Finance and Truterra divisions, and was finance lead for the foodservice, retail cheese and Kozy Shack pudding businesses.

In 2022 he chose a stretch leadership role in rural Wisconsin over a role at a private equity firm in Minneapolis’s North Loop, becoming chief financial officer of Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery. The cooperative sells cheese and dairy products made from its member families’ milk. In September 2024 he became interim chief executive, and in December 2024 he was named CEO. He has described the role as leading a business that sustains generational farming families.

Education

Bethel University

Finance, Class of 2006

He also holds an MBA; the awarding institution was not identified in the sources reviewed.