Director, Integrated Transportation Planning & Transformation

Ashley Furniture Industries•Sunnyvale, TX

About The Position

The Director, Integrated Transportation Planning & Transformation will build and lead a centralized, scalable nationwide transportation-planning capability while preserving the local operating knowledge, responsiveness, and accountability required to execute complex transportation plans successfully. The role owns the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of Ashley Distribution Services’ integrated planning operating model, combining transportation expertise with enterprise transformation leadership across organization design, process standardization, planning technology, information flow, partner governance, talent development, change management, and performance improvement. The position is intended to create an integrated planning organization that improves service reliability, asset and driver utilization, capacity management, operational execution, and enterprise scalability. It is not a technology implementation role or an effort to separate Planning from Operations. The Director will own the business direction and performance of the integrated Planning and Routing technology ecosystem, lead planning transformation across functions and locations, develop planning talent, and establish measurable performance and governance practices. Success includes implementing clear enterprise standards and regional and local responsibilities, improving planning outcomes, reducing reactive decisions and manual workarounds, and sustaining verified improvements through disciplined pilots and continuous improvement.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Logistics, Operations, Business, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
10 or more years of progressive experience in transportation, logistics, supply chain, or related operations.
5 or more years leading multi-site or enterprise-level transportation planning, optimization, or transformation.
Demonstrated experience leading a major operating-model transformation from design through implementation, adoption, and sustained performance.
Experience supporting private fleet, dedicated transportation, multi-stop delivery, truckload, or similarly complex transportation networks.
Experience defining performance baselines, targets, KPIs, governance structures, and benefits-realization measures.
Proven ability to lead significant change across Operations, Planning, Technology, Analytics, and executive stakeholder groups.
Deep understanding of how transportation plans affect drivers, customers, equipment, sites, service performance, and execution teams.
Ability to redesign organizational structures, processes, decision rights, metrics, systems, and operating behaviors.
Strong change-management skills, including the ability to build understanding, ownership, capability, and sustained adoption.
Ability to convert enterprise strategy into clear charters, milestones, ownership, risks, decisions, and measurable results.
Strong knowledge of transportation-planning technology, routing, optimization, analytics, forecasting, system integration, and performance management.
Ability to evaluate emerging technologies based on practical operational value rather than technology alone.
Strong analytical judgment, using data rigorously while recognizing operational context and system limitations.
Ability to balance enterprise standards with regional ownership and local operating realities.
Strong executive communication, facilitation, influencing, and stakeholder-management skills.
Proven ability to develop high-performing planners, managers, and cross-functional teams.
Strong continuous-improvement mindset grounded in root-cause analysis, controlled pilots, operating feedback, and disciplined follow-through.
Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without current or future visa sponsorship.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree or recognized change-management, continuous-improvement, or program-management certification.
Combination of field or fleet operations experience and enterprise planning or transformation leadership.
Experience centralizing or standardizing transportation planning across regions, fleets, or business units.
Business ownership of transportation management, route optimization, control-tower, forecasting, integration, or transportation-analytics platforms.
Experience managing technology providers, conducting quarterly business reviews, and holding partners accountable for performance and business value.
Program-management experience coordinating multiple interdependent workstreams.
Experience building planner competency models, certification programs, cross-training, leadership development, and succession plans.

Responsibilities

Design Ashley Distribution Services’ nationwide transportation-planning model, determining which activities should be centralized, regionally aligned, or locally embedded.
Define roles, reporting relationships, decision authority, escalation paths, coverage requirements, and handoffs across Planning, Routing, Driver and Fleet Management, Operations, and third-party capacity teams.
Build a scalable planning structure that supports multiple regions, fleets, transportation modes, and time zones.
Translate local operating knowledge into documented planning rules, system logic, standard work, training, and measurable controls.
Establish the transformation charter, future-state outcomes, roadmap, milestones, ownership, dependencies, risks, and executive governance.
Lead transformation workstreams through current-state assessment, future-state design, business case development, pilots, measurement, adoption, stabilization, and enterprise scaling.
Coordinate planning, operational, technology, analytics, and change-management activities while maintaining focus on measurable business outcomes.
Build executive alignment and resolve competing priorities across centralized standards, regional ownership, and local operating requirements.
Lead controlled pilots and verify results before expanding changes across the enterprise.
Establish formal daily, weekly, and project-based feedback loops between planners and operating leaders.
Ensure planning decisions reflect customer requirements, driver availability, hours-of-service requirements, equipment positioning, receiving constraints, regional complexity, capacity limitations, and service-recovery needs.
Preserve critical local knowledge while reducing dependence on tribal knowledge, individual workarounds, and reactive decision-making.
Ensure technology-generated plans are operationally executable and measured against defined service, utilization, cost, and stability targets.
Advance the organization toward proactive, exception-based management rather than reactive firefighting.
Define enterprise standards for planning quality, exception management, recovery ownership, operational handoffs, and communication.
Establish clear business and data requirements for the information needed before planning begins.
Develop structured processes to address uncovered freight, driver shortages, capacity constraints, service risks, equipment availability, and after-hours coverage.
Create consistent methods for evaluating planning decisions based on service, capacity, utilization, cost, plan stability, and execution performance.
Convert operational feedback, performance trends, and pilot results into improved standard work and system requirements.
Serve as the business owner for Ashley Distribution Services’ integrated Planning and Routing technology ecosystem.
Partner with Operations, IT, Analytics, and technology providers across transportation management systems, route optimization, forecasting, control-tower, integration, and decision-support capabilities.
Own business requirements, platform roadmaps, information flows, data handoffs, integration priorities, adoption, and operating performance across connected platforms.
Establish technology KPIs covering system availability, data timeliness and quality, user adoption, exception volume, planning efficiency, plan quality, service impact, utilization improvement, and realized business value.
Lead structured quarterly business reviews with strategic technology partners to evaluate performance, defects, roadmap commitments, adoption, emerging capabilities, value realization, and corrective actions.
Evaluate emerging Planning, Routing, optimization, artificial intelligence, and control-tower capabilities and recommend where Ashley should pilot, invest, scale, or avoid.
Develop competency models, training standards, certification expectations, coaching routines, and succession plans for planners and planning leaders.
Use real operating scenarios to strengthen judgment, problem-solving skills, and cross-regional knowledge.
Determine the appropriate division of work among planners, analysts, managers, automation, and operational teams.
Build a continuous-improvement culture that converts operating feedback, KPI trends, technology performance, and pilot learnings into stronger processes and capabilities.
Develop planning leaders who can operate independently and sustain performance as the organization grows.
Establish and manage a balanced planning scorecard covering service, utilization, capacity, cost, plan quality, stability, adoption, and execution outcomes.
Build measurable improvement plans with clear baselines, targets, root causes, actions, owners, due dates, results, and documented learnings.
Provide executive reporting on transformation progress, realized benefits, unresolved risks, technology performance, and decisions required.
Quantify improvements in service reliability, asset and driver utilization, capacity, cost, operational stability, and planning efficiency.