Senior Director Customer Planning

The Hershey Company•Lower Swatara Township, PA

8h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Director, Customer Planning leads the strategy, execution, and continuous improvement of end-to-end customer and channel planning processes. This leader is accountable for translating commercial strategy into integrated, executable plans that align volume, trade investment, customer priorities, and financial outcomes. The role serves as a critical enterprise connector across Sales, Finance, Supply Chain, and other cross-functional partners, driving planning discipline, decision transparency, and executional alignment across the business. In addition to delivering strong business results, this role builds organizational capability, strengthens planning governance, and advances best-in-class planning practices.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required
12+ years of experience in customer planning, sales planning, commercial planning, revenue management, supply chain planning, or related fields
Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional planning processes in a complex consumer packaged goods or similarly matrixed environment
Proven success influencing senior stakeholders and driving business performance through planning, analytics, and decision support
Strong strategic and analytical thinking, with ability to connect decisions to P&L outcomes
Strong commercial acumen, with the ability to translate customer strategies into profitable, executable plans
Proven ability to lead enterprise planning processes and influence cross-functional stakeholders
Exceptional leadership and influence skills, with the ability to align senior stakeholders across competing priorities
Expertise in balancing customer needs with enterprise financial and operational priorities
Ability to drive alignment, governance, and execution discipline across complex organizations
Ability to lead through ambiguity, complexity, and organizational change
Track record of building high-performing teams and scalable planning capabilities

Nice To Haves

advanced degree preferred
Experience leading teams and/or building organizational capability preferred

Responsibilities

Lead the development and execution of annual, quarterly, and in-year customer and channel plans that translate commercial strategy into actionable priorities
Ensure plans are integrated across demand, supply, trade investment, and financial objectives to support profitable growth
Establish end-to-end visibility to customer volume, promotional plans, trade investment, and performance through planning systems and routines
Define and sustain planning standards, KPIs, governance forums, and decision rights that improve transparency, accountability, and execution discipline
Shape customer and commercial plans to optimize trade investment, revenue growth, and profitability
Monitor performance versus plan, identify risks and opportunities, and drive timely actions to improve financial and customer outcomes
Apply strong analytical, financial, and scenario-planning capabilities to evaluate alternatives and inform decision-making
Convert forecast, performance, and customer data into actionable insights that strengthen planning quality and business outcomes
Lead cross-functional alignment across customer teams, commercial leadership, Finance, Supply Chain, and other enterprise partners to ensure plans are executable and aligned to business priorities
Facilitate effective decision-making and issue resolution across stakeholders, balancing customer opportunities with enterprise constraints and objectives
Lead continuous improvement of planning processes, tools, and routines to improve forecast quality, agility, and decision effectiveness
Build organizational capability through coaching, talent development, and adoption of planning best practices
Develop and lead a high-performing planning organization, including coaching, talent development, succession planning, and capability building
Create a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement across the planning team