Associate Business Planning Manager

Our company is on a transformation journey to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its integrated business planning (IBP) processes. The objective is to enhance our ability to provide a complete, unbiased, and objective understanding of how integrated planning actions impact our business’s financial health.

As part of this transformation journey, we are piloting new IBP capabilities and testing new processes, systems, and operating structures to bring this capability to life. We are looking for a dynamic leader who can help drive the enhancement of our IBP capabilities and build our IBP capability for the future. This role will serve as a core part of the IBP team and be a lynchpin for project success.

Job Description

• Demand Forecast Analysis Activities:
• Develop demand forecasts incorporating leadership and functional feedback as needed to arrive at an integrated and accurate plan.
• Assess and test key forecast drivers, seeking a deeper understanding of demand forecast driver attribution and their influence on the forecast, risks, and operations.
• Identify key forecast tensions, tradeoffs, and decisions needed for discussion in Demand Scenario Lock Meetings and Leadership Alignment Meetings.
• Serve as the single point of consolidation and articulation of the full businessdemand plan from different demand planning streams.
• Scenario Coordination Activities:
• Drive scenario analysis, leveraging scenario manager tools, identifying the impact of changing demand drivers based on business acumen.
• Analyze the demand forecast impact of different risk and opportunity scenarios.
• Support framing and strategy development against the most likely impactful scenarios, in alignment with Leadership Team.
• Cross-Functional Responsibilities:
• Conduct proactive cross-functional outreach to understand forecasts and key drivers, extract business insights, understand risks and opportunities, correctly incorporate overrides to lock demand planning scenarios, and explain the output of the model to the business.
• Review and validate inputs and, if needed, hold input owners accountable for delivery, collecting updates via standardized tools, templates, and processes.
• Actively foster and contribute to a community of like-minded practitioners.

Key Skills, Abilities, and Experience Required

• Forward-Looking Strategic Thinking: Ability to synthesize disparate data into coherent, forward-looking business strategy and tactics for advancing business priorities, with management/leadership team support.
• Strong Financial Acumen
• Strong Data Science/Analytical Skillset: In-depth understanding of how a forecast model works, including the strengths and pitfalls of machine learning models and the core elements of predictive modeling.
• Analytical Abilities: Able to analyze and diagnose core forecast drivers and understand their impact on forecasts using relevant tools.
• Data Fluency: Proficiency in working with data, recognizing trends, and translating them into forecast narratives.
• Customer Operations Understanding: Deep understanding of customer operations, with the capacity to explain and reconcile demand drivers and their interactions to drive the business.
• Supply Chain Management: Strong foundation in supply chain network management and operations.
• Executive Communication and Presence
• Adaptability: Ability to act in a fast-paced environment, rapidly prioritize, and adapt to change.
• Cross-Functional Networking: Ability to network cross-functionally and influence without authority.
• Intellectual Curiosity and Tenacity: Including creative problem-solving skills.
• Team Leadership: Ability to lead and manage a team of up to 5 direct reports.
• Industry Experience: 5-10 years of industry experience, preferably in consumer packaged goods (CPG) or fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).
• S&OP/Demand Planning Experience: Recent experience in sales and operations planning (S&OP) or demand planning.
• Statistical Modeling/Predictive Analytics: Deep experience in statistical modeling and predictive analytics and/or Machine Learning.
• Cross-Functional Influence: Experience interfacing and influencing across multiple functions.
• Customer-Facing Role Experience: Preferred experience in a customer-facing role.
• Educational Background: Bachelor’s degree (Master’s degree a plus) or equivalent in Engineering, Supply Chain, Data Science, Predictive Analytics, or equivalent experience required.