How Pauline built the fortune
Keinath did not build a business of her own. Her wealth comes from a stake in Cargill, the agricultural commodities group that her great grandfather William Wallace Cargill started as a grain storage business in Iowa in 1865. Control later passed to the MacMillan side of the family after Cargill's daughter Edna married John MacMillan, who took over the company in the early twentieth century. Pauline is a granddaughter of John MacMillan and a daughter of Cargill MacMillan Sr., who served as a senior executive of the company.
Cargill has stayed private for more than 150 years, which is unusual for a business of its size. Ownership is spread among roughly a hundred family members, who together hold the large majority of the shares, while employee plans own much of the rest. Because the company does not trade on a stock exchange, the value of each family member's holding has to be estimated from its reported revenue and earnings, which have been large in years of high crop and energy prices.
A significant change came in 2011, when Cargill separated its majority stake in the fertilizer maker Mosaic. The transaction let a family charitable trust sell its holding and gave other family shareholders the option to receive Mosaic shares, adding a listed asset to what had been a fully private fortune for many heirs.
Companies and holdings
Cargill is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States. Its main activities include:
- Trading and processing grains and oilseeds
- Meat and poultry processing
- Animal feed and nutrition
- Food ingredients such as starches, sweeteners and cocoa
- Financial and risk management services for commodity markets
The company is headquartered near Minneapolis in Minnesota and operates in dozens of countries. Keinath's holding is part of the collective family ownership, and the family, rather than any single heir, shapes the broad direction of the company through its representatives on the board. She has not held an operating role in the business, and her stake is managed alongside those of her relatives through family structures that are not publicly disclosed.
Cargill's leadership has passed from family members to professional executives over recent decades. Whitney MacMillan, a cousin of Pauline, was the last family member to serve as chief executive, retiring in 1995. Since then the company has been run by outside managers, while the family has kept control through share ownership and board seats. Dividends paid to family shareholders, together with occasional share sales within the family, provide the main way heirs such as Keinath receive income from the business.
Early life and career
Pauline MacMillan was born on July 31, 1934, into the branch of the family that had run Cargill for a generation. Her father, Cargill MacMillan Sr., and her uncle, John H. MacMillan Jr., both held leading positions at the company during the middle of the twentieth century, a period in which it grew from a regional grain merchant into an international trader. She grew up in a household closely connected to the business, though women in the family at that time were not expected to take management roles.
She later married and took the name Keinath. Unlike some relatives, Pauline has not been involved in running the company, and her public profile has remained limited. Her inheritance passed to her through the family's long established practice of keeping Cargill shares within the bloodline.
Philanthropy and public life
Keinath lives a private life and rarely gives interviews. Information about her personal giving is sparse, and she is not known for large named donations or a prominent public foundation in her own name.
The wider Cargill and MacMillan families are known for substantial philanthropy, much of it organized through family foundations and through the company's own charitable programs, which support food security, education and communities where Cargill operates. The best known family charity is connected to Margaret A. Cargill, a granddaughter of the founder from the other branch of the family, whose estate funded large philanthropic organizations after her death in 2006. Any specific causes Keinath supports personally are not well documented in public records, and this profile does not attribute particular gifts to her.