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About the Role

The Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) serves as a business executive and trusted advisor to the CEO, Board, and executive leadership team. This role translates strategy and values into a disciplined people system to strengthen leadership, culture, capability, accountability, and performance across a complex, multi-site manufacturing organization. The CHRO will set clear direction, establish sound policies, and ensure consistent execution, balancing strategic thinking with frontline engagement.

Responsibilities

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 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 performance management differentiates performance, provides timely feedback, rewards contribution, and resolves persistent underperformance.
Establish, maintain, communicate, and consistently apply clear employment policies, standards, decision rights, and governance across all locations.
Ensure the HR team adheres to the same policies, service standards, controls, timelines, and accountability expected of the broader organization.
Build a capable, service-oriented HR team; set clear roles and outcomes, delegate real authority, remove barriers, and hold each leader accountable for doing the work of the role.
Know where to ‘play up’—personally engaging in high-risk, high-impact, confidential, executive, or precedent-setting matters—while empowering the team to resolve routine matters at the appropriate level.
Create disciplined workflows, service levels, dashboards, audits, and follow-up mechanisms for recruiting, employee relations, investigations, performance, development, payroll/HRIS interfaces, benefits, and compliance.
Use people analytics and external benchmarks to identify trends, test assumptions, anticipate risk, and improve decisions.
Champion the modernization of HR technology, data, analytics, automation, and service delivery by supporting strategic investment, removing barriers, and empowering functional leaders to drive transformation and execution.
Set the strategy for constructive labor relations and collective bargaining; ensure consistent contract administration and credible relationships with union representatives and operational leaders.
Ensure compliance with employment, labor, benefits, affirmative action, equal employment opportunity, privacy, recordkeeping, and other applicable laws and regulations.
Oversee fair, timely, well-documented investigations and employee-relations decisions; protect confidentiality and ensure consistent treatment without avoiding difficult conclusions.
Partner with Legal, Finance, Operations, Safety, and Quality to identify and mitigate workforce, conduct, compliance, and reputation risks.
Design and govern compensation, incentive, benefit, recognition, and wellness programs that are competitive, financially responsible, performance-oriented, and aligned with the Cooperative’s values.
Use engagement listening, retention data, site-level insight, and leader accountability to improve the employee experience and strengthen commitment.
Support the Board’s compensation and succession responsibilities with accurate analysis, sound judgment, clear materials, and strict confidentiality.
Serve on the company retirement committee and provide appropriate oversight of retirement-plan administration and fiduciary processes.
Represent the Cooperative professionally in relevant community, industry, and talent-market relationships.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Leadership, or a related field; advanced degree strongly preferred.
At least 15 years of progressive HR leadership experience, including enterprise responsibility in an organization of 1,000 or more employees.
Substantial leadership experience in a multi-site manufacturing, food, agriculture, consumer products, distribution, or comparably operational environment; unionized experience strongly preferred.
Demonstrated success changing culture, improving leadership quality, and building a sustained high-performance environment with measurable results.
Proven expertise in executive and critical-role succession, talent assessment, leadership development, organization design, performance management, labor relations, and total rewards.
Strong command of employment law, collective bargaining, investigations, HR governance, and policy development and administration.
Strong business and financial acumen, including the ability to interpret financial and operating results, build business cases, evaluate tradeoffs, and link people decisions to enterprise value.
Executive presence and communication skill sufficient to influence a Board, CEO, senior leaders, plant management, union leaders, and frontline employees.
Ability and willingness to travel regularly among company locations and maintain visible engagement in manufacturing operations.

Skills

Strategic Mindset
Business Insight
Drives Results
Builds Effective Teams
Develops Talent
Instills Trust
Courage
Authentic and trustworthy
Confidential and independent
Operationally disciplined
Empowering and accountable
Courageous and constructive
Manufacturing credible
Exceptional judge of talent

Location

Multiple company locations

Work Type

Executive office and manufacturing-plant environments
Regular travel among company facilities
Availability outside normal business hours for urgent matters

Experience Level

At least 15 years of progressive HR leadership experience
Enterprise responsibility in an organization of 1,000 or more employees
Substantial leadership experience in a multi-site manufacturing, food, agriculture, consumer products, distribution, or comparably operational environment

Education Level

Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Leadership, or a related field
Advanced degree strongly preferred

Salary/Compensations

$265,000 - $325,000 a year

Benefits

Group health and/or dental insurance
Retirement plan
Wellness program
Paid time away from work
Paid holidays

About the Company

Upstate Niagara Cooperative, Inc. is a farmer-owned organization operating in a complex, multi-site manufacturing environment.

Equal Opportunity

Upstate Niagara Cooperative, Inc. is committed to equal employment opportunity for all, without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, citizenship, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic.