In addition to overseeing their respective Reserve Banks, the regional Fed directors are essential conduits between their local communities and the nation’s central bank, offering insight and counsel on the economy drawn from their own expertise and contacts. The Spring issue of TEN, introduces the directors who began their terms of service in 2020.
With an academic and agribusiness background that spans from Oklahoma to Asia, Brady Sidwell brings deep global expertise to the Oklahoma City Branch Board of Directors.
Sidwell, an international economics scholar who worked in China for 10 years, is founder and president of Sidwell Strategies in Enid, Oklahoma. The company provides risk management and marketing solutions for food and agriculture enterprises. It also handles futures and options trading in the commodities markets.
“We’re agriculture-focused,” Sidwell said. “We’re here to provide professional value-added products and services to farmers, ranchers and agribusiness.”
Sidwell has founded, helped launch or serves as chief executive of several other businesses in the fields of agriculture, finance, food and technology. He said that serving on the Board allows him to draw on that experience.
“Essentially my voice is the agriculture voice,” Sidwell said. “It’s also about gaining insight as to where other industries are relative to agriculture, and hopefully being able to generate ideas and have input into how the economic model is evolving.”
Sidwell is a graduate of Oklahoma State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics with a focus on international marketing. He holds a master’s degree in Economics from the University of Hong Kong, where he was a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar to China. Early in his career, Sidwell worked on U.S. Department of Agriculture projects in South Korea and Thailand. In China, he worked in the banking and food industries. Before founding Sidwell Strategies, he spearheaded global business development, investment and strategy as a vice president with OSI Group.
“I bring an international perspective back to this part of the country and also to the agriculture industry,” Sidwell said. “With the economy and monetary policy, I think that there’s a lack of understanding of why the system works the way it does. So I hope to learn more about that so I can share that with the people I work around and also with the people in my industry.”