Ep. 128 - From Rodeo to Agriculture, The Future of the Western Industry with Alex Russell of Syngenta
From Rodeo Kid to Agriculture Professional
Alex’s story begins with humble origins of her rural childhood, built around horses where rodeo was the main priority. With parents that gave their children the chance to grow up in the western way of life, they’d often find themselves going without in other areas to make it possible. Alex and her sister would spend their weekends rodeoing, traveling, and building relationships with people across the Western industry.
That upbringing shaped the way Alex sees work today.
Rodeo taught her grit. Agriculture taught her responsibility. FFA taught her leadership. And over time, all of those pieces came together into a career that now spans sales, training, marketing, product strategy, communication, and agricultural business.
Alex’s story is a strong reminder that your first experiences matter, no matter if you aren’t in that world for your adult career. The skills Alex built in rodeo, farming, FFA, 4-H, ranching, livestock, or rural communities can become the foundation for a much larger career.
How FFA Changed Alex Russell’s Career Path
One of the most important turning points in Alex’s life was FFA. Originally planning to follow several women in her family into the medical field, with her eyes set on the roll of a nurse anesthetist. But once she became involved in FFA, her future completely changed.
Through FFA, Alex gained leadership experience, public speaking skills, and a deeper connection to agriculture as a professional field. She went on to hold leadership roles, including at the state level, and still considers herself “forever blue and gold.” FFA did more than give her a high school activity. It gave her a career direction.
For many young people in rural America, FFA is one of the first places where agriculture becomes more than a background. It becomes a business, a science, a leadership platform, and a future. If you didn’t think agricultural education matters - Alex’s story shows it’s relevancy.
Why Agriculture Careers Are Bigger Than People Realize
Alex studied agricultural economics and plant and soil science, with a focus that eventually tied into weed science, crop physiology, and the business of helping producers solve problems. At first glance, those fields may seem highly technical or disconnected from rodeo and western culture, but Alex explains how her internships helped her understand the kind of work she actually wanted to do.
She interned with AgriGold, ADM, and Syngenta. Each experience taught her something different. Seed, grain merchandising, crop protection, sales, field work, customer relationships, and agricultural problem-solving all helped her understand where her skills fit.
Eventually, Alex found the role that combined her love of agriculture, her interest in helping people, and her natural ability to communicate.
That role was agricultural sales.
But this episode makes clear that “sales” in agriculture is not just selling a product. It is understanding producers, crops, pests, markets, science, timing, weather, economics, and trust.
Agriculture careers are broader than many people realize. They can include:
Sales
Marketing
Product strategy
Crop protection
Seed treatment
Agronomy
Research and development
Regulatory work
Finance
Training
Leadership development
Communications
Customer support
Technology
Sustainability
Data analysis
Animal science
Food systems
Agriculture offers career paths that extend far beyond the farm gate.
Alex Russell’s Career Path at Syngenta
Unlike many young people in the workforce today, Alex’s continuity within Syngenta is a great representation of how one can move through an organization through different roles and leads, while continuously keeping a forward trajectory. Alex’s path started with an internship and, from there, she became a developmental sales representative, then moved into a full-time crop protection sales role in southwest Indiana. She spent more than six years building customer relationships, learning regional agriculture, and gaining experience in the field.
Later, she moved into a Field Force Excellence and Training role, which functioned as a sales training and development position. In that role, she helped coach employees, support managers, develop talent, and strengthen the sales organization. Alex describes that training role as one of the most rewarding jobs she may ever have.
Eventually, she realized that the role was playing heavily to her natural strengths: communication, facilitation, people skills, and emotional intelligence. She wanted to become more well-rounded, so she moved into a marketing and product strategy role.
Today, Alex is the U.S. soybean seed care product lead, where she helps lead national strategy for soybean seed treatment products.
Her career path is a useful example of what growth can look like inside a major agricultural company. It was not one straight line. It was a series of opportunities, risks, stretch roles, mentors, sponsors, and moments where she chose to step into something uncomfortable.
What Soybean Seed Care Actually Means
In plain English, Alex’s current role sits at the center of a large wheel.
She describes herself as the hub, with spokes reaching out to field teams, regulatory teams, formulation development, global colleagues, seed companies, producers, and other stakeholders.
Her job is to help connect what is happening in the field with the products and strategies being developed to solve real agricultural problems.
Seed treatments are designed to help protect the potential inside a bag of seed. When producers invest in seed, they need that seed to perform. Pests, diseases, environmental pressure, and other challenges can threaten yield potential. Seed care products are one tool used to help protect that investment.
Alex explains that bringing crop protection products to market is not fast. It can take many years and significant investment to move from molecule development to real-world use. That process involves science, safety, regulation, sustainability, testing, communication, and trust.
For listeners outside row crop agriculture, this part of the episode is especially useful. It shows how much work happens before a product ever reaches the farm.
The Importance of Mentors and Sponsors
One of the strongest professional development sections of this episode is Alex’s explanation of the difference between a mentor and a sponsor.
A mentor is someone who sees the full picture. They see the hard days, the mistakes, the frustration, the growth, and the messy middle. A mentor can challenge your thinking, help you process decisions, and give you honest feedback.
A sponsor is different.
A sponsor is someone who advocates for you when you are not in the room. They may not know every hard moment, but they know enough about your goals, strengths, and potential to speak your name in conversations about future opportunities.
Alex shares that she intentionally asked someone in leadership to be her sponsor after learning about the concept through a women’s leadership program. That relationship eventually became meaningful as she prepared for future roles.
This is a practical lesson for anyone building a career in agriculture, rodeo, western business, or corporate America.
You need people who can help you grow.
You also need people who can help others see your potential.
Career Advice for Young Professionals
Katie and Alex also talk about how young professionals can evaluate job opportunities.
Alex’s first piece of advice is simple: follow your gut.
She also encourages people to ask questions during the interview process and to talk to people who already work at the company. If employees are proud of the organization, they will usually be willing to talk about it honestly. If they are hesitant, guarded, or negative, that may tell you something important.
Alex also emphasizes the importance of asking better questions in interviews.
Instead of only trying to impress the employer, job seekers should also be evaluating whether the role, manager, team, and company are right for them.
Good interview questions might include:
What does success look like in this role?
How will I be measured?
What does the team dynamic look like?
What kind of person does well here?
What are the biggest challenges in this role?
What does growth look like from this position?
How does the company support employee development?
The episode makes a clear point: not every scary opportunity is a red flag.
Some opportunities are scary because they stretch you.
Others are scary because something is wrong.
Learning to tell the difference matters.
Agriculture and Rodeo Overlap More Than People Realize
Because Alex comes from both rodeo and agriculture, Katie asks where those two worlds overlap.
Alex points out that some connections are obvious, especially around livestock, feed, cattle production, and animal agriculture. But the deeper connection is people.
Rodeo and agriculture both require grit, resilience, problem-solving, and a willingness to keep going when conditions are difficult.
They are both people-driven industries.
They are both built on tradition.
They are both facing pressure to innovate.
And both industries need people from different backgrounds to understand, respect, and contribute to the work being done.
Alex also notes that the western way of life is becoming more visible through television, fashion, media, and popular culture. That attention creates opportunity, but it also creates responsibility. People inside agriculture and the western industry need to be willing to talk to one another, ask questions, and build bridges.
Tradition and Innovation in Agriculture and the Western World
One of the most thoughtful parts of the conversation is the discussion about tradition and innovation.
Katie points out that the western industry often talks about tradition, while agriculture often talks about innovation. Alex agrees that both are important, but she cautions against believing that innovation means losing tradition.
Her perspective is grounded in a simple idea:
When we know better, we do better.
Agriculture has had to innovate because fewer people are producing food for a growing population. Farming is no longer something that can be done only because “that is how it has always been done.” Producers have to think like business owners, scientists, managers, and long-term strategists.
At the same time, tradition still matters. Family farms, rodeo values, rural culture, and generational knowledge all carry weight.
The challenge is not choosing one or the other.
The challenge is learning how to honor tradition while still being willing to improve.
Why the Western Industry Needs to Talk About Hard Things
Alex and Katie also talk about the need for both agriculture and the western industry to have more honest conversations.
That includes conversations about:
Financial stress
Farm transition
Mental health
Producer suicide rates
Veterinary and agricultural stress
Food systems
Consumer misunderstanding
Animal welfare
Technology
Innovation
Generational pressure
Business sustainability
Alex points out that people in agriculture and the western world often avoid the hardest topics. But avoiding those topics does not solve them.
In fact, honest conversations can build trust.
The industry can still tell beautiful stories about tradition, grit, and western heritage. But it also has to be willing to talk about the real challenges producers, ranchers, farmers, veterinarians, business owners, and rural families are facing.
Food Production, Consumer Trust, and Agricultural Awareness
Another major theme in the episode is food awareness.
Alex believes western lifestyle audiences should pay more attention to where food comes from, how it is produced, and what it takes to get food from farms and ranches to families.
She also notes that people are becoming more interested in understanding their food. Sometimes that interest comes from curiosity. Sometimes it comes from fear. Agriculture has an opportunity to help move people from fear to understanding.
Katie and Alex discuss consumer conversations around organic food, non-GMO products, chemistry, grocery access, food affordability, and the privilege of living somewhere where people can debate food choices at all.
Alex’s perspective is practical: people should be able to ask questions about food, but agriculture also needs to help provide honest, grounded answers.
The future of agriculture will require both production and communication.
What Alex Russell Is Excited About in Agriculture
When asked what excites her about the future of agriculture, Alex points to the younger generation.
She sees young people entering agriculture with a stronger understanding that farming is a business. A farm may be rooted in family tradition, but it may also be a multimillion-dollar operation that requires real financial, strategic, and operational skill.
Young farmers, ranchers, and agricultural professionals are becoming more aware of business management, technology, communication, markets, and long-term sustainability.
That gives Alex hope.
She is also encouraged by the growing public interest in food production. People want to understand where their food comes from. That creates an opportunity for agriculture to communicate better, build trust, and help people understand the complexity of feeding the world.
The Rodeo Rule Alex Would Change
As part of That Western Life’s signature rodeo question, Katie asks Alex what rule or change she would make in professional rodeo.
Alex’s answer is clear: she would bring breakaway roping to the NFR.
As a former breakaway roper, Alex wants to see those athletes on the sport’s biggest stage. She believes the women competing in breakaway deserve the visibility, recognition, and opportunity of competing inside the Thomas & Mack during the National Finals Rodeo.
For Alex, this is about more than one event. It is about giving talented women the chance to compete on the biggest platform in professional rodeo.
Deep Thoughts on the Rodeo Trail with Alex Russell
Katie closes the episode with another signature question: Deep Thoughts on the Rodeo Trail.
Alex’s answer is centered on self-confidence, personal accountability, and growth.
Her message is that there is no real hiding. You either show up or you do not. Over time, true self-confidence comes from realizing that the only person you are competing with is the version of yourself that showed up yesterday.
That thought captures much of Alex’s career story.
She has stepped into roles before she felt fully ready. She has asked questions. She has taken feedback. She has allowed herself to be stretched. And she continues to build new skills by choosing growth over comfort.
The lesson is simple:
Show up better than you did yesterday.