Crisis Communications Expert

Summary

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. 

Responsibilities

Crisis Communication and Preparedness

• 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.

Corporate Resource Coordination

• 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.

Minimum Qualifications (required)

• 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

Additional Qualifications

• 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
• Ability to work in-person 3 days/week at the CHS headquarters in Inver Grove Heights
• Pre-employment screening is based on the job requirements and industry guidelines and may or may not be required for the position. If required, selected candidates must pass pre-employment screenings to include all or a combination of drug, criminal, motor vehicle check, physical requirements and FMSCA Clearinghouse.

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