Chief Human Resource Officer

Position Summary

The Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) is a business executive and trusted adviser to the Chief Executive Officer, Board, and executive leadership team. The CHRO translates Upstate Niagara Cooperative's strategy and farmer-owned values into a disciplined people system that strengthens leadership, culture, capability, accountability, and performance across a complex, multi-site manufacturing organization.

The Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) is a business executive and trusted adviser to the Chief Executive Officer, Board, and executive leadership team. The CHRO translates Upstate Niagara Cooperative's strategy and farmer-owned values into a disciplined people system that strengthens leadership, culture, capability, accountability, and performance across a complex, multi-site manufacturing organization. This leader will set clear direction, establish sound policies and standards, and ensure consistent execution.

The CHRO must combine enterprise-level judgment with frontline credibility - knowing when to operate strategically, when to engage directly in a critical issue, and when to empower capable leaders to own the work. Success requires authenticity, confidentiality, courage, business and financial acumen, and an unwavering commitment to follow-through.

• Build a high-performance culture in which expectations are clear, leaders are accountable, employees are respected, and results and values reinforce one another.
• Create an enterprise talent system that consistently identifies, attracts, develops, deploys, and retains exceptional people for critical roles—from the frontline through the executive team.
• Strengthen management quality by coaching capable leaders, confronting poor leadership promptly, and establishing practical training and consequences that raise performance to a clearly defined standard.
• Bring operating discipline to Human Resources through clear priorities, SMART goals, visible measures, assigned ownership, rigorous review cadences, and reliable closure of commitments.
• Serve as a trusted, independent voice who protects confidentiality, gives candid advice, and balances employee, business, farmer-owner, legal, and reputational considerations.

• Develop and execute a multi-year human capital strategy aligned with the Cooperative's business plan, operating model, growth agenda, and financial objectives.
• Advise the CEO, Board, and executive leadership team on organization health, leadership effectiveness, workforce risk, executive talent, succession, compensation, culture, and organizational design.
• Use business, operational, and financial insight to prioritize people investments and quantify their expected impact on productivity, retention, capability, risk, and profitability.
• Translate strategy into annual priorities and SMART goals; establish owners, milestones, scorecards, and disciplined operating reviews to ensure completion.

• Define, model, and embed the desired company culture through leader expectations, operating routines, talent decisions, recognition, performance management, and consequences.
• Demonstrate the credibility to spend meaningful time in plants and with frontline employees, understand manufacturing realities, and translate those realities into practical people solutions.
• Assess leadership behavior objectively; address ineffective or values-inconsistent leadership directly, fairly, and promptly, with a clear improvement standard and appropriate accountability.
• Act as a leader, mentor, and coach to executives, HR leaders, plant leaders, and emerging talent; build their capability rather than creating dependence on HR.

• Build an enterprise talent philosophy and pipeline for hourly, skilled-trades, professional, plant leadership, and executive roles, including workforce planning for hard-to-fill capabilities.
• Lead rigorous talent reviews and succession planning for critical roles; identify readiness, development actions, retention risks, emergency successors, and longer-term successors.
• Apply exceptional judgment in selecting and assessing talent; raise the quality, consistency, and speed of hiring and promotion decisions.
• Design practical leadership development, onboarding, mentoring, and frontline supervisor programs tied to defined competencies and measurable business outcomes.
• Ensure…