Chris Hodges
The National Pork Board, which manages the pork checkoff, today named Chris Hodges, a senior vice president of Smithfield Farmland, as its new CEO.

Hodges will move to Des Moines to lead the checkoff, the board said in a news release. His last day with Smithfield will be February 13.

A retiring board member of the National Pork Producers Council, Hodges has served as chairman of its Packer Processor Industry Council since 2013.

Before current role at Smithfield Farmland, Hodges served as senior vice president, fresh pork and industrial sales at Farmland Foods, and led the sales and marketing teams for its Smithfield and Farmland brands.

Hodges, raised in Laurens, Iowa, is a graduate of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, with a focus in international relations. He also has a master of arts degree in international affairs from Columbia University.

Early in his career Hodges was a project manager at the Agriculture Department, assigned to the U.S. Agency for International Development where he managed extension projects in international grain markets. He later earned a doctorate in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Minnesota.