Supply Chain Director

Director of Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)

Global Heavy Industrial Manufacturing | ~$1B Revenue | PE-Backed Growth Business

We are partnering with a leading private equity–backed global manufacturer in the heavy industrial sector to appoint a Director of Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP). This is a critical senior leadership hire as the business continues to scale and drive operational excellence across its international footprint.

The business is a ~$1B revenue global manufacturer specialising in highly engineered, made-to-order metal-based products supplied into complex industrial end markets. Operating across multiple international manufacturing sites, the organisation is in an active growth and transformation phase supported by private equity ownership.

As complexity increases across demand variability, customer requirements, and constrained manufacturing capacity, the business is investing significantly in strengthening its end-to-end planning capability.

This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for designing, embedding, and leading a world-class global S&OP process within a complex, engineer-to-order manufacturing environment. The role will act as the central integrator between commercial demand, operational supply, and financial planning, ensuring a single aligned view of demand, capacity, and profitability across the organisation.

Key responsibilities include:

• Leading the global S&OP / Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process
• Establishing a structured monthly planning cycle across demand, supply, and executive review forums
• Aligning Sales, Operations, Engineering, Procurement, and Finance around a single operating plan
• Managing trade-offs between demand, constrained production capacity, and raw material availability (including metals and industrial inputs)
• Leading scenario planning to support executive decision-making in a constrained and volatile environment
• Improving forecast accuracy, planning maturity, and cross-functional alignment
• Partnering with Finance to ensure alignment between S&OP outputs, budgeting, forecasting, and long-range planning
• Providing clear, data-driven recommendations to senior leadership
• Supporting continuous improvement of planning systems, tools, and governance across a global manufacturing network

We are seeking a senior planning or supply chain leader with strong experience in complex manufacturing environments, ideally engineer-to-order or make-to-order. Exposure to heavy industry sectors such as metals, industrial equipment, aerospace, or automotive would be highly advantageous.

The ideal candidate will bring experience of:

• Leading S&OP / IBP in a global manufacturing organisation
• Operating in constrained supply environments (capacity, materials, production bottlenecks)
• Multi-site, international manufacturing operations
• Strong commercial acumen bridging operations, sales, and finance
• PE-backed, high-growth, or transformation environments
• Executive-level stakeholder management and influence

This is a rare opportunity to take ownership of a global S&OP function at the centre of a PE-backed growth agenda, with significant scope to shape process, capability, and impact across the organisation.

If you are interested or would like to learn more, please get in touch.