Jennifer Henderson is an attorney, mediator and business executive who brings over 25 years of legal and business experience to bear in zealous advocacy for her clients. Jen has worked in the roles – and stood in the shoes – of many of her stakeholders in business context – owners, vendors, in-house counsel, and executives. As a result, she has honed a valuable and rare understanding of people, company dynamics, legal issues and underlying stakeholder interests, all of which help her deliver results for her clients in the most challenging circumstances.
Jen started her career in litigation, working on both employment and real estate matters. She then moved to an in-house counsel role at Cargill, representing the company’s grain, meat processing, transportation, commodities trading and global animal nutrition businesses before being asked to run one of the company’s businesses in Canada. For five years, Jen was the Managing Director of a highly regulated animal nutrition business with five manufacturing facilities and 400 employees. In this role Jen was accountable for sales, HR, finance, operations and risk management. Cargill then tapped Jen to reorganize and lead Food Safety and Quality teams in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and the Asia Pacific region, as well as “start-up” businesses in the industrial oils and cosmetic industries.
Jen was later recruited to take a role as General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer for a food technology start-up, where she had oversight for all legal, HR, food safety, government and regulatory affairs for the company. In 2023, Jen made the decision to pursue her lifelong passion for constructive dispute resolution, utilizing all her experiences and capabilities to help clients achieve positive outcomes out of the most challenging circumstances they and their businesses can face.
In 2025 Jen joined Engelmeier & Umanah, where she mediates and handles the full panoply of employment law matters. She counsels employers on a wide variety of employment issues including litigation avoidance strategies, responding to administrative agencies, resolving conflicts without costly, distracting and time-consuming litigation, managing challenging personnel issues and disputes, issues related to buying and selling businesses, and creating respectful workplaces. Jen also advises individuals regarding their rights as it relates to workplace law, including accommodation and leave entitlements, issues related to the Minnesota Human Rights Act, the Minnesota Whistleblower Act, contract law, enforcement of or challenges to restrictive covenants and more.
Jen is Advisory and Legal Counsel to the North American Export Grain Association and is a licensed Realtor with Lakes Sotheby’s International Realty. She is a volunteer mediator for the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, and volunteers as a Board member, and provides pro bono General Counsel services for the non-profit organization, MORE (https://www.more-empowerment.org/), which provides language instruction and other services to immigrants, enabling them to achieve higher earning jobs.
Qualified Neutral, Rule 114, Minnesota General Rules of Practice
Jennifer Henderson
Sheila Engelmeier
