Mitzi Perdue's Blog

Author, speaker, and businesswoman Mitzi Perdue holds a BA with honors degree from Harvard University and an MPA from the George Washington University. She is a past president of the 35,000-member American Agri-Women, she’s a former syndicated columnist for Scripps Howard, and her television series, Country Magazine, was syndicated to 76 stations. She’s the founder of CERES Farms, the family-owned commercial and agricultural real estate investment company that has owned rice fields, commercial and residential real estate, and today, the family vineyards sell wine grapes to wineries such as Mondavi, Bogle, Folie a Deux, and Toasted Head.

Mitzi combines the experiences of two long-time family businesses. Her father Ernest Henderson co-founded the Sheraton Hotel Chain and her late husband Frank Perdue was the second generation in the poultry company that today operates in more than 100 countries.

She loves to point out that the Henderson family business began in 1840 with the Henderson Estate Company. If you combine the 178 years since it began, and the 98 years that Perdue Farms has been in business, she represents 276 of family history.

Recently she authored HOW TO MAKE YOUR FAMILY BUSINESS LAST, Techniques, Advice, Checklists, and Resources for Keeping the Family Business in the Family.

Mitzi Perdue likes nothing better than to share tips for what worked in the two long-running families that she’s a part of.