Demand Planning Manager

Vibrant Ingredients•Lake Mary, FL

About The Position

At Vibrant Ingredients, demand planning is more than forecasting—it's a strategic capability that drives customer satisfaction, operational excellence, and business growth. We're looking for a Demand Planning Manager to build and lead the demand planning function that connects our commercial teams with our supply chain. In this highly visible role, you'll serve as the trusted partner to Sales, Account Managers, Finance, Operations, and Executive Leadership, ensuring the business operates from a single, credible demand signal. If you're energized by turning data into business decisions, collaborating with customers and commercial teams, and influencing executive decision-making, we'd love to hear from you.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, business, operations, or a related field; equivalent experience may be considered.
Five or more years of experience in demand planning experience in CPG, food & beverage, or natural ingredients; experience with MTS, MTO and SPO inventory models strongly preferred.
Hands on experience contributing to or running S&OP/ IBP cycles; comfortable translating demand signal into executive level tradeoff conversations.
Demonstrated ability to partner with commercial/sales teams and engage directly with key customers; comfortable in a customer business review.
Advanced excel (complex formulas, weighed averages, conditional formatting); proficiency with and ERP (e.g. Business Central, Great Plains) and demand planning tools.
Player-coach mindset; ability to lead a small team and coordinate work across the planning function without formal direct reports.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with Pigment or similar IBP tools is a plus.

Responsibilities

Build and maintain statistical forecasts; lead the monthly demand consensus cycle across sales, marketing, finance and supply to land an unconstrained demand plan by SKU, account and BU.
Own forecast accuracy (MAPE/WAPE) and bias measurement; diagnose drivers of variance, trace corrective actions, and report performance to the S&OP leadership team.
Develop and maintain demand profiles for key accounts and channels (MTS, MTO, SPO and NPI), including seasonality, launch curves, phase – in/phase-out and cannibalization effects.
Forecast new product introductions, manage phase-in / phase-out transitions, and align demand plans with commercial launch calendars and promotional events.
Provide the unconstrained demand view as the input to the monthly S&OP cycle; surface demand risks, opportunities, and scenario tradeoffs for executive decision making.
Maintain planning master data, forecast models, and KPI dashboards; champion process and tool improvements to reduce manual effort and improve signal quality.
Create a repeatable support model that gives account managers access to demand insight, so customer conversations are grounded in real demand signal – not guesswork.
Serve as the dedicated demand planning partner to the ACM team; provide each ACM with visibility into their customers’ demand, forecast, and inventory position picture.
Participate in key account business reviews and customer forecast collaboration meetings; help translate customer commitments and market intelligence back into the demand plan.
Partner with ACMs to forecast customer -specific promotions, seasonal programs, and new-item launches; align supply readiness to commercial commitments.
Equip ACMs with accurate demand -driven context on availability, lead times, and order timing so they can set realistic customer expectations and protect service.
Capture customer and market signal from the account team and feed it systematically into the forecast adjustments and the S&OP process.