Director, Demand Planner

The Director, Demand and S&OP Planning will oversee a team of demand planners and be responsible for managing forecasting activities for multiple brands comprising 1000+ finished good SKUs sold globally. This role reports to the VP, Operations. To be successful in this role, 1) you must be a strong leader able to make quick decisions under ambiguous conditions while building consensus with cross-functional partners, 2) coach a team of demand planners with various experience levels, 3) articulately present ideas, data and conclusions to multiple levels of the organization.

Responsibilities

• Lead demand consensus process with internal stakeholders via pre-S&OP meetings to ensure demand plan is aligned with business projections and financial targets while accounting for overall supply chain KPIs- target service rates on core brands and core customers, maintaining the right SKU mix to reduce excess and obsolete inventory and reducing forecast error and bias.
• Lead monthly S&OP process in partnership with Supply planning lead; represent Demand Planning team in internal Operations meetings as well as cross-functional calls.
• Ownership of all demand planning building blocks and the ability to build Excel-based models and analyze statistical models generated by Anaplan.
• Exhibit ease at macro and micro level analysis and root causing gaps between forecast and actuals; routine analysis of shipments vs consumption at key retail partners; ability to perform time-sensitive ad-hoc analysis.
• Partner with PMO, Finance & Sales on NPD forecasts to ensure successful launch to market; understanding innovation timeline and performance monitoring and measurement is key.
• Be able to provide insight on pipe fill, replenishment velocities, cannibalization rates and promotional activity related lifts.
• Be an active partner to Sales & Marketing when developing recommendations on deletes.
• Motivate and coach the demand planning team to be curious and to dig deeper in order to effectively contribute to the overall service metrics for the operations organization.
• Own the demand planning module of our planning tool Anaplan & champion improvement of demand plan models; own all reporting dashboards in Power BI relevant to forecasting analysis and metrics.
• Identify opportunities for operational improvements, streamline processes and implement best practices.
• Qualifications

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in Demand Planning in fast moving consumer goods for major national retailers across mass, drug, club and grocery
• 8+ years of experience managing teams
• Bachelor’s degree in Math, Engineering, Supply Chain or Finance with a strong analytical background
• Expert knowledge of forecasting, S&OP or IBP process, inventory management, and scenario planning processes
• Experience with demand planning software such as Anaplan, Valogix and experience in an ERP/MRP environment
• NetSuite experience
• Superb communication skills, verbal + written – ability to clearly and concisely communicate complex ideas to various cross-functional stakeholders
• Demonstrated capability in making timely, difficult decisions to ensure critical business goals are met
• Highly proficient in data analysis using Excel, Power BI, etc.
• Results-driven mindset, ability to dig deep into data and question everything; high degree of comfort with ambiguity & organizations in transformation