Senior Manager, Demand Planning

Lactalis LHD • Chicago, IL

1d • $130,000 - $145,000

About The Position

Ready for more than just a job? Build a career with purpose. At Lactalis in the USA, we’re committed to providing meaningful opportunities for our people to learn, grow, and thrive—whether you’re just starting your journey with us or looking to take the next step in your career. From day one, we offer the tools and support to help you succeed. As the world leader in dairy, Lactalis is a family-owned company with over 85,000 pragmatic and ambitious professionals across the globe. Each day, we’re proud to produce award-winning dairy products that bring people together. In the US, we proudly offer an unrivaled house of beloved brands, including Galbani® Italian cheeses and ricotta, Président® specialty cheeses and butters, Kraft® natural and grated cheeses, Breakstone’s® cottage cheese, Cracker Barrel®, Black Diamond® cheddar, and Parmalat® milk. Our yogurt portfolio includes siggi’s®, Stonyfield Organic®, Brown Cow™, Oui®, Yoplait®, Go-Gurt®, :ratio®, Green Mountain Creamery®, and Mountain High®, along with a growing family of ethnic favorites like Karoun®, Gopi®, and Arz®. At Lactalis, we live by our core values—Ambition, Engagement, and Simplicity. We foster a workplace where innovation thrives, diverse perspectives are celebrated, and everyone’s unique background and ideas are valued. Even if you don’t meet every qualification, we encourage you to apply. We want to hear about your PASSION, your STORY, and how your EXPERTISE can help us shape the future of dairy. From your PASSION to ours The Senior Manager of Demand Planning is accountable for leading the demand planning team and coordinating the overall demand management process. The principle objective is to ensure a robust and disciplined monthly demand review cycle to deliver an accurate unbiased, unconstrained demand plan based on all relevant cross functional input, which will require strong collaboration with commercial and operational partners. This role is responsible for and leading and developing the Demand Planning organization, building world class people capabilities and appropriately recruiting the best team to meet the functional and organizational objectives.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, engineering, business, logistics, or related field.
• 5+ years of supply chain experience with at least half that time in Demand Planning / Forecasting.?
• Experience leading teams (2+ years)
• Proficiency in Excel and general knowledge of other MS Office applications
• Knowledge of customer and consumer behavior and how these behaviors impact the demand plan
• Knowledge of the methodologies of statistical forecasting and how this forms the basis of a demand signal
• Knowledge of how to develop a driver based demand plan and the various inputs that are used
• Ability to demonstrate a drive for results within demand planning and understand how this links with the organizational goals.
• Proven ability to build effective relationships with all departments and employees in a collaborative team-oriented environment
• Demonstrated experience building strong teams and developing people

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree preferred
• Industry certifications preferred: APICS, IBF, CSCMP
• SAP experience preferred?

Responsibilities

• Lead a forecasting team responsible for the development of an unbiased and unconstrained forecast over a 24-month horizon with properly documented assumptions, including presenting the forecast and associated assumptions during the broader business S&OP process.
• Ensure workload is balanced and team members have appropriate brand / segment responsibility
• Coach and develop team capabilities in analysis, forecasting, planning, and influencing.
• Optimize ways of working and supporting tools/processes within the team, and with the broader business, to ensure that the efforts of the team keep up with the changing needs of the business.
• Partner with finance to support appropriate linkage between the monthly demand plan and financial forecasts (key assumptions, risks, opportunities).
• Partner with Commercial leadership to quantify & validate risks and opportunities, and support the development of plans to close gaps between the forecast and target.
• Partner with marketing to validate the size of innovations, renovations, and campaigns as they enter into the 24-month forecast horizon.
• Communicate and influence the business to close gaps between the unbiased forecast and target
• Present the forecast and associated assumptions to business leadership and key stakeholders
• Remain an unbiased voice in the face of business pressures
• Resolve disagreements over planning assumptions and drive for consensus
• Partner with Supply Planning to ensure that there is confidence in the demand plan, and that key forecast decisions are being made with the appropriate amount of lead time to ensure successful execution and delivery of the plan.
• Drive continuous capability building within the Demand Planning team as a talent development program to promote individual professional and functional growth and development.
• Set and track performance targets for the team across key KPIs including Forecast Error, Bias, and Forecast Value Add

Benefits

• At Lactalis, we offer a comprehensive Total Rewards Program with a variety of affordable benefits and coverage options.
• We support insurance costs significantly, contribute generously to retirement plans, and offer Paid Time Off from day one.
• We are committed to your professional growth, providing training and development opportunities, including Education Reimbursement.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level