Manager Strategic Planning Manager Strategic Planning

Nestle Operational Services Worldwide SA•Arlington, VA

About The Position

At Nestlé USA, we are dedicated to delighting and delivering for our consumers with a portfolio of beloved brands. We foster an inclusive workplace that inspires innovation, encourages strategic thinking and creativity, and celebrates achievements. Employees are empowered to challenge the status quo, embrace risk-taking, and pioneer new ideas in a supportive and collaborative environment that promotes bold ambitions and continuous learning. This role leads strategic planning operations and enterprise process improvement initiatives to strengthen commercial planning across the organization. It involves owning and evolving end-to-end planning routines, driving consistent adoption of standards and tools, and delivering scalable resources, training, and communications for smarter, faster execution. The role also plays a key part in AI and automation enablement within commercial planning, partnering across functions to shape, pilot, and scale solutions that improve planning quality, clarify expectations, and unlock efficiency gains. The Strategic Planning Manager on the Dynamic Planning Team is central to evolving division-centric planning into Dynamic Planning by owning standardized ways of working, governance, and measurement across the Integrated Commercial Planning (ICP) process and other long-term and short-term planning processes. This role helps establish the Dynamic Planning Team as an enterprise-wide Center of Excellence (COE) for unified planning, bridging strategic and operational planning to deliver clarity, agility, and best-in-class execution. The manager leads cross-functional programs to improve planning effectiveness and stakeholder experience by owning ICP standards, creating and scaling planning resources, driving change management, establishing performance metrics, and enabling AI and digital solutions.

Requirements

4+ years of experience in strategy & operations, consulting, program management, process improvement, or enterprise transformation.
Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives end-to-end.
Strong communication and presentation skills with the ability to influence and align stakeholders.
Strong analytical problem-solving skills and comfort translating ambiguity into structured standards and solutions.
Ability to manage multiple priorities in complex environments.
Bachelor’s degree required (or equivalent experience).

Nice To Haves

CPG and/or commercial planning experience (ICP/IBP/MBP, S&OP, cross-functional planning forums).
Experience with digital enablement, analytics, and workflow simplification.
Experience partnering on AI enablement efforts, including use-case definition and adoption.
Cross-functional exposure across Sales, Marketing, Commercial Development, Finance, Supply Chain, and IT/Digital.
Change management and adoption leadership experience.
Strong understanding of cross-functional dependencies and enterprise planning flows.
Ability to translate business needs into practical standards, tools, and enablement.
Understanding of the connection between short-/mid-term execution and long-term strategy.

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end Integrated Commercial Planning (ICP) process, including standards, expectations, outputs, timelines, and role clarity across planning phases.
Assess current planning processes and identify opportunities to simplify execution, improve rigor, and reduce rework.
Define and govern enterprise planning standards that align cross-functional teams and reinforce accountability.
Drive consistency in process and tool usage by reinforcing “one way of working” and removing friction points.
Translate strategy and leadership direction into clear, executable planning guidance.
Lead planning excellence and transformation initiatives end-to-end, from scoping and planning through execution, adoption, and value realization.
Coordinate cross-functional contributors across Sales, Commercial Development, Finance, Supply Chain, Marketing, and IT/Digital.
Maintain disciplined planning rhythms, including milestone tracking, status reporting, escalations, and leadership updates.
Ensure initiatives are enterprise-ready, on time, and deliver intended business outcomes.
Support development and execution of the Dynamic Planning AI enablement roadmap aligned to ICP standards and decision needs.
Identify high-value use cases, support pilots, and scale adoption through training and change management.
Drive adoption and continuous improvement of planning tools.
Partner with stakeholders to ensure strong data quality, definitions, and standards—recognizing their role in AI effectiveness.
Develop scalable planning resources such as templates, checklists, standards guides, and “what good looks like” examples.
Design and deliver enterprise training across planning roles and phases; ensure materials are centrally housed and reusable.
Build ongoing enablement that reinforces standards, builds confidence, and strengthens adoption.
Partner with HR and L&D to embed planning capabilities into learning pathways.
Drive a mindset shift toward Dynamic Planning through clear guidance, leadership alignment, and targeted communication.
Build communication plans that clarify what is changing, why it matters, what is expected, and how success is measured.
Facilitate cross-functional alignment sessions to ensure plans are connected, actionable, and enterprise-aligned.
Build trusted stakeholder relationships to drive adoption without adding unnecessary complexity.
Define and track success metrics across planning quality, readiness, cycle time, and adoption.
Establish feedback loops using surveys, analytics, and stakeholder input to identify opportunities for improvement.
Translate insights into prioritized actions and monitor sustained behavior change.
Continuously refine planning standards, tools, and resources year over year.