Crisis Communications Expert

CHS, Inc.•Inver Grove Heights, MN

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

CHS Inc. is a leading global agribusiness owned by farmers, ranchers and cooperatives across the United States that provides grain, food and energy resources to businesses and consumers around the world. We serve agriculture customers and consumers across the United States and around the world. Most of our employees are in the United States, but today we have employees in 19 countries. At CHS, we are creating connections to empower agriculture. CHS, a diversified global agribusiness cooperative owned by farmers and local cooperatives across the United States, has an exciting opportunity to support the strategic communication needs of the company’s approach to issues and crisis management. This position will collaborate with a team of communication experts to support the planning, preparation and execution of issues management and crisis communications. This role is responsible for incident management, crisis preparedness and crisis response. The specialist will often lead and organize the corporate response team during crisis situations or incidents that may impact the company’s employees, operations or reputation. In addition, the role will be responsible for serving as the lead communicator during incidents. Through collaboration and communication with business and function leaders, this individual will work to ensure alignment between local and corporate response plans and preparedness exercises, including crisis drills. This individual will be part of the company’s communication team and will report to the leader of content, channels and reputation.

Requirements

High School diploma or GED
7+ years of experience in strategic communication or crisis communications and response
Business acumen and interest in the agribusiness and/or energy industry
Experience developing crisis communication strategies and plans and executing on those plans
Experience leading, facilitating or participating in tabletop exercises as part of crisis preparedness
Ability to lead in a crisis, gain support of key leaders and maintain composure
Interpersonal skills and the ability to navigate a complex global organization
Strong executive presence and communication skills to clearly articulate ideas and strategies
Strong writing and editing skills paired with business and issues management acumen
Experience professionally interfacing with other teams within a company including legal, compliance and safety, among other functions
Experience operating independently and executing flawlessly on strategic and tactical levels

Nice To Haves

Bachelor's degree preferred in Communications, Communication Arts, Marketing, Journalism, Business, English, or related field
Experience supporting executive communications
Completion of crisis response trainings or certifications such as public information officer certification

Responsibilities

Understand CHS, our businesses, and our operations to support crisis and issues preparedness and communication across the enterprise.
Conduct ongoing assessments of potential issues facing the organization and develop plans to anticipate and mitigate reputational issues.
Develop and implement crisis communication strategies including communication and reputation plans to help protect or advance our brand and reputation.
Participate in the development and leadership of preparedness efforts, including drills, exercises, and training.
Serve as crisis communications subject matter expert to others throughout the CHS organization to drive a common understanding of effective issues and crisis communication plans.
Collaborate with the media relations team to help prepare company spokespeople for addressing media and other stakeholders in the event of a crisis or incident.
Partner with media relations and social media team members on reputation monitoring efforts before, during and after incidents.
Oversee the use of communication channels needed to reach employees or other stakeholders during incidents or crises.
In partnership with the director of content, channels and reputation, be available and on-call for crisis situations that may occur outside of business hours.
Build and maintain a close partnership with other teams throughout CHS, including but not limited to safety, security, legal, HR and EHS.
Serve as one of the trained leaders of the corporate resource coordination team when called upon in an incident or crisis.
Coordinate and collaborate across the organization to bring required corporate resources together to support the team directly impacted by the incident or crisis.
Lead coordination team meetings, follow-up and help connect workstreams together to ensure effective collaboration and streamlined communication between corporate resources and the impacted team or location.
Lead after-action reviews to determine what went well and where opportunities for improvements exist, both within the organization as well as within crisis and incident response. Work on implementing improvements where identified.
Participate in the corporate resource coordination working group, leading optimization efforts to improve our incident and crisis response approach.