Senior Director, Continuous Improvement

Summary

CHS, Inc. is seeking a strategic, forward-thinking Senior Director of Continuous Improvement to help shape the future of our Agriculture division. If you’re a driven leader with a passion for operational excellence and global impact, this is an opportunity to make a meaningful difference. In this role, you’ll lead a high performing team focused on elevating organizational performance through LEAN methodologies and innovative problem solving. You’ll partner with leaders across the business to identify new opportunities, implement change, and advance best in class practices. Your work will drive continuous improvement, strengthen business processes, increase transparency into operations, and create efficiencies through standardization, process optimization, and improved governance. You’ll also play a key role in uncovering cross functional opportunities and synergistic savings across CHS.

What We’re Looking For:

• A strong people leader with the analytical depth to manage a high volume of complex projects
• A proactive, innovative approach with the ability to step in, own initiatives, and drive results as a subject matter expert 
• Exceptional relationship building skills and clear, transparent communication
• A global mindset supported by meaningful international experience to collaborate effectively across diverse markets and cultures

This position is onsite at our global headquarters in Inver Grove Heights, MN.

Responsibilities

Strategy, Direction and Leadership

• Develop and implement the global continuous improvement strategy grounded in LEAN principles to maximize growth across the global business platform.
• Collaborate with a wide range of key stakeholders to ensure CI projects are driven throughout the organization in a timely manner and within budgetary guidelines. 
• Provide organizational development and systems analysis. 
• Develop tools for strategy and leadership growth within the organization.
• Partner with executive leadership to align improvement initiatives with long-term business goals.
• Drive process improvement initiatives across the Global Ag business, anticipating and ensuring development and maintenance of robust, scalable shared service capabilities (processes, systems, policies/procedures, organization, and compliance) to support the company’s growth. 
• Build organizational capability through training programs, coaching, and certification pathways.

Relationship and Project Management 

• Build relationships at all levels of the organization to facilitate collaboration across business departments and functions to deliver desired strategic outcomes.
• Develop a set of actionable and targeted change management plans including leadership alignment and sponsorship engagement, communication and stakeholder management, role mapping and training deployment.
• Build tools that support conducting stakeholder analysis, organizational and business readiness assessments, evaluation, and presentation of findings with actions plans. that are in a logical and easy-to-understand format. 
• Be an active and visible coach and mentor to team members, project sponsors and leadership.
• Act as a champion for cultural transformation across the enterprise.

Team Management

• Provide mentoring and leadership to attract, develop and retain talent.
• Coach and build a team, support professional development, review and assess performance and enable employees to maximize their performance.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and cross functional collaboration.

Minimum Qualifications (required)

• High School diploma or GED 
• 10+ years of experience in continuous improvement, financial analysis, ag business, business process improvement, project management or related field
• Prior leadership experience with progressively advancing level of leadership responsibilities

Additional Qualifications

• Lean Certification highly preferred
• Bachelor’s Degree or MBA preferred in related field.
• 5+ years of leadership experience, plus a strong record leading projects, driving organizational change, and managing cross‑functional teams across multi‑site and remote environments
• Experience collaborating with other stakeholders to achieve tasks (IT, Finance, Business Units, etc.)
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities, with a track record of data driven decision making while using LEAN tools and methodologies.
• SAP ERP experience.
• Background in grain merchandising, origination, processing, or supply chain operations, with an understanding of commodity flows and customer needs.
• Multilingual communication skills in Spanish, Portuguese and/or French to support international teams. 
• 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.

Physical Requirements

• Travel up to 20%