Senior Manager, Demand Planning

BIC•Norwalk, CA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

Join BIC World, a community of brands dedicated to creating ingeniously simple and joyful products that have been part of hearts and homes for over 75 years. We are committed to growing our iconic and innovative brands by reimagining everyday essentials in new, sustainable, and responsible ways. Our culture encourages a "roll up your sleeves and get the job done" mindset, ensuring self-starters, problem solvers, and innovative thinkers can truly thrive. At BIC World, you are empowered to take ownership of your career and use your unique perspective to make a meaningful, global impact on our mission. The Senior Manager, Demand Planning is a critical leader within BIC USA's Supply Chain organization, responsible for leading the demand planning function across a ~$1B U.S. business spanning three categories and more than 1,400 SKUs. This role owns the end-to-end demand planning process and is accountable for creating a single, forward-looking view of demand that enables the business to make better commercial, financial, supply, and inventory decisions. The Senior Manager translates market intelligence, commercial strategy, customer dynamics, promotional activity, innovation, and external trends into actionable demand plans across multiple planning horizons. As a strategic business partner to Sales, Marketing, Finance, Supply Planning, Operations, and Customer teams, this leader will challenge assumptions, surface risks and opportunities, and ensure demand plans reflect both the ambition of the business and the realities of the marketplace. The role plays a critical part in driving IBP/S&OP maturity, improving forecast accuracy and bias, optimizing inventory, and enabling superior customer service. Beyond the planning process, the Senior Manager will build and develop a high-performing team, strengthen planning capabilities, drive digital and analytical transformation, and establish best-in-class demand planning practices across the organization. The ideal candidate brings a business leader mindset to demand planning — balancing analytical rigor with commercial acumen, challenging the status quo, and connecting demand decisions to revenue, profitability, customer experience, inventory, and operational performance.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Business, Engineering, Finance, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related field.
8–10 years of progressive experience in Demand Planning, Supply Chain, Forecasting, IBP/S&OP, or a related discipline.
Minimum 3 years of experience leading and developing teams.
Demonstrated experience managing complex CPG/FMCG portfolios with high SKU, customer, promotional, and seasonal complexity.
Proven experience partnering with Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Supply Chain leadership.
Demonstrated experience with promotional, seasonal, innovation, and lifecycle-driven demand environments.
Experience leading or significantly contributing to IBP/S&OP transformation and process improvement.
Demonstrated experience using data and analytics to influence business decisions and challenge assumptions.
Demand Planning & Forecasting
Statistical Forecasting & Modeling
IBP / S&OP
Supply Chain Analytics
Commercial & Market Analysis
Scenario Planning
Advanced Microsoft Excel
Power BI
ERP Systems, including JDE, SAP, or Oracle
JDE
SQL / Data Analytics
Advanced forecasting and machine learning applications
APICS/ASCM methodologies

Nice To Haves

MBA or advanced degree preferred.
APICS/ASCM certification or equivalent supply chain certification preferred.
Experience supporting businesses with $500M+ in revenue preferred.
Lean Six Sigma experience or certification preferred.
Blue Yonder or other advanced demand planning platforms

Responsibilities

Lead the end-to-end monthly demand planning process across all U.S. categories, ensuring a robust and disciplined approach to forecasting and demand management.
Own the demand plan across multiple planning horizons, including near-term execution, 0–24 month planning, Annual Operating Plan (AOP), Latest Estimate (LE), and Long-Range Planning (LRP).
Establish and continuously improve demand planning methodologies, including statistical forecasting, historical analysis, market intelligence, commercial inputs, and scenario-based planning.
Drive improvements in forecast accuracy, forecast bias, forecast value add, and overall demand plan quality.
Establish clear planning governance, standards, roles, and accountability across the demand planning organization and broader business.
Lead preparation, consolidation, and presentation of demand inputs for IBP/S&OP and executive planning forums.
Ensure the demand plan provides a clear and actionable view of the most likely business outcome while appropriately reflecting upside, downside, and uncertainty.
Identify opportunities to simplify and improve planning processes, eliminate non-value-added activities, and increase the speed and quality of decision-making.
Serve as a strategic thought partner to Sales, Marketing, Category Management, Business Development, Finance, and other commercial stakeholders.
Translate commercial strategies, customer plans, promotions, innovation, pricing, distribution changes, competitive activity, and market trends into the demand plan.
Challenge commercial assumptions using data, insights, and external market intelligence to ensure forecasts are ambitious yet grounded in evidence.
Create constructive tension when appropriate, ensuring the organization distinguishes between commercial ambition and statistically supported demand.
Partner with Sales and Marketing leadership to understand the demand drivers behind revenue plans and identify gaps, risks, and opportunities.
Provide forward-looking insights that help leaders understand what is changing, why it is changing, and what the business should do about it.
Support launch planning and demand forecasting for new products, line extensions, discontinuations, and portfolio changes.
Improve alignment between revenue plans, demand plans, operational capabilities, and financial expectations.
Serve as the Demand Planning leader within the North America IBP/S&OP process, while benchmarking and sharing best practices with global partners.
Own the demand review process, ensuring accurate, insightful, and decision-oriented materials are prepared for senior leadership.
Consolidate inputs from Commercial, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, and other functions into a single aligned demand view.
Identify and communicate material demand risks, opportunities, gaps, and emerging trends.
Lead scenario planning and sensitivity analysis to evaluate potential impacts of market, customer, and supply-related changes.
Facilitate cross-functional discussions to drive alignment and resolution of demand-related issues.
Ensure clear handoffs and alignment between demand, supply, inventory, and financial plans.
Continuously evolve the IBP/S&OP process to increase business value, decision quality, and executive engagement.
Establish a fact-based, data-driven approach to demand planning and business decision-making.
Leverage Blue Yonder, JDE, Power BI, Excel, and other analytical tools to improve visibility, forecasting, and decision support.
Develop and monitor demand planning KPIs, dashboards, and performance reporting.
Lead root-cause analysis of significant forecast variances, bias, and demand performance gaps.
Distinguish between forecast error caused by planning performance versus true changes in market or customer behavior.
Develop actionable insights from large and complex data sets and translate analytics into clear business recommendations.
Drive continuous improvement in forecasting methodologies, processes, tools, and capabilities.
Partner with Supply Chain, IT, and other stakeholders on digital transformation and future-state planning technology.
Promote best-in-class demand planning practices aligned with APICS/ASCM principles and leading CPG practices.
Lead, coach, and develop a team of Demand Planning professionals responsible for category-level demand planning.
Establish clear objectives, performance expectations, and accountability across the team.
Build organizational capability in forecasting, analytics, commercial acumen, scenario planning, and business partnering.
Develop succession plans and strengthen the talent pipeline for critical planning capabilities.
Foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, continuous improvement, and fact-based decision-making.
Encourage the team to operate as proactive business partners rather than transactional planners.
Provide coaching and development that strengthens both technical planning expertise and broader business leadership capabilities.
Recognize and develop high potential talent while addressing performance gaps with clarity and consistency.
Partner closely with Supply Planning, Customer Service, Operations, Procurement, Finance, and Commercial teams to optimize end-to-end business performance.
Identify opportunities to improve the balance between customer service, inventory, working capital, and forecast performance.
Support initiatives that improve inventory health, reduce slow-moving and obsolete inventory, and increase supply chain responsiveness.
Participate in cross-functional transformation initiatives that strengthen end-to-end planning capabilities.
Challenge existing processes and ways of working to identify opportunities for simplification, automation, and greater business impact.
Champion a continuous improvement mindset and promote adoption of new tools, processes, and planning capabilities.
Bring an enterprise mindset to decision-making, balancing category-level objectives with total business performance.