Global Demand Planning Lead

AFL•Duncan, SC

About The Position

The Global Demand Planning Lead is a senior leadership role responsible for building and leading AFL’s global demand planning function, which serves as a critical foundation of the company’s Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process. This individual will develop and manage a high-performing team while driving accurate demand forecasts across a diverse, multi-market product portfolio. A key aspect of the role is serving as a strategic partner to cross-functional stakeholders, including Sales, Marketing, Operations, Finance, and Supply Chain. Through this collaboration, the Lead ensures that market insights and business inputs are translated into reliable, data-driven demand plans that support both operational execution and financial performance. This position is highly visible and influential, playing a central role in shaping how AFL aligns its market understanding with internal planning processes to enable continued global growth. The Lead is responsible for improving forecast accuracy, enhancing planning processes, and ensuring that demand signals are effectively captured and reflected in company-wide plans. Importantly, the role acts as a neutral owner of the demand signal within the IBP framework. This means maintaining the integrity of the “one set of numbers” by ensuring that the demand plan reflects true market demand rather than being influenced by operational constraints, supply limitations, expedited orders, or commercial pressure. By safeguarding this objectivity, the Lead helps ensure that decision-making across the organization is based on consistent, reliable data. Overall, this role combines leadership, analytical rigor, and cross-functional collaboration to align market demand with business execution, making it a key enabler of AFL’s strategic and operational success.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Business, Engineering, or related field (MBA preferred).
10+ years of supply chain experience, including 5+ years in demand planning leadership roles.
Experience building or transforming demand planning functions in manufacturing environments.
Hands-on experience with demand planning systems (SAP IBP, Kinaxis, or similar).
Strong knowledge of IBP processes (Oliver Wight framework preferred).
Demonstrated ability to link demand planning with financial and business outcomes.
Excellent communication, facilitation, and leadership skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a global, multi-site manufacturing environment with complex SKU portfolios.
Familiarity with telecom, broadband, energy, or data center markets.
APICS CPIM or IBP certification.
Experience in a matrixed or global enterprise environment.

Responsibilities

Build, lead, and develop a geographically distributed demand planning team. Establish clear roles, expectations, and career development pathways. Promote a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and data-driven decision-making.
Own end-to-end demand forecasting (statistical and consensus-based). Enhance forecasting methodologies using market data, customer inputs, and product insights. Improve forecast accuracy and bias (MAPE) through continuous improvement practices. Implement governance processes to ensure forecast adjustments add value. Communicate demand assumptions, risks, and outlook across all planning horizons.
Lead the Demand Review process within AFL’s IBP framework (Oliver Wight aligned). Ensure a single, aligned demand plan integrated with commercial and financial plans. Prepare and deliver IBP artifacts (KPIs, demand plans, assumptions, action tracking). Standardize IBP processes, templates, and governance to support maturity. Facilitate cross-functional alignment on demand trade-offs and prioritization decisions. Maintain objectivity as the neutral owner of the demand signal.
Partner with Sales, Product Management, and Operations to translate market signals into plans. Align demand plans with supply and production strategies while maintaining an unconstrained view. Collaborate with Finance to align volume plans with revenue and margin targets. Identify and drive resolution of risks, gaps, and opportunities across the business.
Lead optimization of demand planning systems (e.g., SAP IBP, Kinaxis RapidResponse). Define system requirements and partner with IT to implement enhancements. Develop dashboards and analytics for real-time demand visibility. Ensure strong data governance, planning hierarchies, and forecast accuracy. Maintain auditable and traceable demand planning outputs.