Ethan SMith

Family Business Advisor, Pinion

Session: Sustainable Finance: Considerations Across the Beef Supply Chain

Ethan works with family and closely held agricultural businesses providing guidance around long-term planning to match family goals for ownership and management. His knowledge and experience continue to grow with the wide variety of production practices and organizational structures seen across the agricultural industry.

Within Pinion’s Family Business Advising team Ethan has had the opportunity to work with family business clients from California to New York through a balance of in-person and virtual interactions. In addition to individual client work, he has the chance interact with 70+ family businesses through Pinion’s Peer Group Network. With multiple touch points throughout the year Ethan can stay plugged into the successes and struggles that operations experience. With a team approach they facilitate and coordinate these Peer Groups in various locations across the country to bring executive education to ag businesses leaders and families.

Ethan’s success and experience is derived from both his formal and informal education in production agriculture. Growing up on a family farming and ranching operation in Eustis, Nebraska, Ethan gained hands-on knowledge while working with his own family. He is still actively involved with his family operation in Nebraska today, while also continuing his production passion with a cow-calf herd in Texas with a business partner.

Ethan came to Pinion after working nearly a decade in a third-party farm and ranch management company, Farmers National Company. In this role, his understanding of ownership and succession strategies furthered with clientele from trusts, corporate fiduciaries, charitable organizations, and individual absentee landowners. He covered a vast geography with a specialty in managing ranching operations and working with farm tenants in a variety of crop production practices.

Ethan received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Nebraska- Lincoln in Agricultural Economics with a minor in Animal Science. He holds a Certificate in Family Business Advising (CFBA) from the Family Firms Institute. Ethan is also an Accredited Farm Manager (AFM), a designation from the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. In 2019, he was recognized as one of AgGrad’s Top 30 Under 30 in Agriculture.

Ethan currently lives in Fort Worth, Texas with his wife and two daughters.