Christensen Farms is one of the largest, family-owned pork producers in the United States, marketing approximately 3 million hogs per year. Headquartered in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, our 50-year-old company operates throughout the Midwest with facilities in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, and South Dakota. Christensen Farms owns three feed mills, manages 140,000 sows on 44 farms, and oversees more than 350 nurseries and grow-finish sites. Our organization employs nearly 1,000 people and maintains 1,500 contract partnerships. We are an industry leader with a proven commitment to ethical practices, food safety, and nutrition. Join our team!

Position Overview:

The purpose of the data and analytics governance program is to develop company-wide policies and procedures that ensure enterprise data assets and associated analytics meet certain criteria within and across the company's systems. The key objective of this program at Christensen Farms is to enhance data and analytics accuracy, increase data timeliness, and improve the protection of sensitive data.

The Lead Data Steward serves as the central coordinator and mentor for all data stewardship activities, ensuring alignment between business units, data stewards, and the Data Governance Council. This role provides strategic oversight, facilitates collaboration, and champions data governance adoption across the enterprise. The Lead Data Steward is a supervisory role with responsibility for mentoring and coordinating data stewards.

From Our Manager:

"You will have an opportunity to have a significant impact on our organization by helping to ensure data quality, integrity, accuracy, and security through governance with a progressive leader in the ag industry. We value individual and professional growth and will support your career progression." -Hiring Manager

What You Will Do:

• Lead and mentor data stewards, drive governance policy development, oversee enterprise-wide data quality initiatives, consolidate metrics, report to leadership, and promote data-driven culture.
• Assess the current state of data reliability, security, privacy, and retention within their scope of responsibility.
• Oversee and implement actions to meet data reliability goals and ensure compliance with all data governance policies. Including management of confidential and restricted data.
• Work with our Decision Science, IT, and/or Financial Analyst teams to recommend optimal approaches for resolving data quality or consistency issues to achieve goals.
• Collaborate within and outside their immediate team to drive changes that support the adoption of data governance policies.
• Monitor and track ongoing data reliability levels and other metrics that assess the adherence of data and people to data governance policies.
• Report into the data governance council either via the lead data steward, or as a team (a data stewards' group, for example, where the need for data stewardship spans data domains and business functions), or individually (per their direct responsibility).
• Actively correct data quality issues that cannot be addressed fully by automated means.
• Participate in regular data governance committee meetings.
• Provide input into the data and analytics governance committee for improvements in the work of governance and stewardship.
• Research tools, disciplines and industry trends and recommend improvements for team or company consideration.

What You Offer Us:

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Statistics, or related field.
• Five years' experience in data governance, data quality management, or business process improvement.
• Strong communication, strategic thinking, and leadership skills.
• Strong understanding of data governance principles and practices.
• Clear, concise, and precise written and verbal communication skills to effectively communicate with people of various backgrounds including non-technical audiences.
• Analytical thinking, problem-solving capabilities, attention to detail and ability to monitor compliance metrics.
• Familiarity with data privacy and security standards.
• Ability to influence adoption of governance policies across diverse teams.
• Computer skills required: Working knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite
• Strict adherence to company confidentiality and ethical standards.

Pluses/Preferences:

• Intermediate knowledge of data analytics tools (e.g., Power BI, SQL) and enterprise software systems (e.g., ERP, CRM).
• Experience working in an agricultural business, particularly in the swine industry.

What We Offer You:

• Clear career progression track within IS.
• We offer a comprehensive benefits package including health, dental, vision, a flexible spending account (FSA), life insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, a 401(k) plan, paid holidays, paid time off bank, an employee assistance program (EAP), and more.
• Be an active part of an organization that gives back to the community in many ways - including feed programs that support local farms, food shelf programs, food support for veterans, agriculture education, and promotion, FFA/4H support, charitable contributions, etc.
• A company that has a passionate purpose for food safety, animal welfare, and for living its core values every day - respect, integrity, excellence, adaptability, and innovation.
• A culture that fosters employee growth, hybrid work options, promotion from within, and a highly team-oriented workplace environment.
• The targeted base pay range for this role is $90,000 to $140,000 with this range reflecting differences in candidate knowledge, skills, and experience.

Christensen Farms promotes a culture of inclusion and strives to attract a diverse set of candidates for each of our open positions. We are an equal employment opportunity employer and proud to offer employment and growth opportunities to all candidates without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, gender, national origin, pregnancy, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or veteran status.

Learn more about how you can put your passion and talent to work with us at: