Katie Farmer

President & Chief Executive Officer, BNSF

Katie Farmer was named President and Chief Executive Officer effective January 1, 2021; she also leads BNSF’s Board of Directors. Katie has been with BNSF for 30 years, most recently serving as executive vice president and Chief Operations Officer since September 2018, overseeing the entire Operations organization. In that role, Katie led the team responsible for operation of trains and maintenance of track, structures and rolling stock, as well as sourcing, safety, and training.

Prior to serving as executive vice president and Chief Operations Officer, Katie served as vice president, Service Design and Transportation Support since July 2017. In this role, she was responsible for the scheduling of railroad operations to meet customer expectations and optimize use of the BNSF network, and leading the service design functions for the Agricultural, Industrial, Consumer Products and Coal business units in addition to Capacity Planning, Joint Facilities, Shortline Development and Passenger Operations.

Katie began her career in the railroad industry with the Burlington Northern in 1992 as a management trainee in Fort Worth, Texas. Katie has held a variety of positions in sales and marketing in the Chemical, Plastic and Minerals business units. She has also held positions in finance, customer solutions and network operations. In 1998, after a field sales position in Houston, Texas, she returned to Fort Worth as director, Plastics Marketing. In 2001, she was appointed to general director, Chemical Products Sales. In 2002, she was promoted to the position of assistant vice president, Carload Equipment, supporting the Carload, Agricultural Products and Coal business units. In December 2005, she was named vice president sales, Industrial Products, and in June 2010 was appointed vice president, Domestic Intermodal. Beginning in January 2013, she served as group vice president, Consumer Products.