Senior Demand Planning & S&OP Leader

The Supply Chain Demand Manager is responsible for developing, managing, and continuously improving demand forecasting and planning processes across product lines, customers, regions, and sales channels. This position ensures alignment among Sales, Marketing, Finance, Operations, and Supply Chain to support product availability, inventory optimization, cost control, and exceptional customer service.
The Demand Manager will lead demand planning activities within the Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) or Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process, improve forecast accuracy, identify risks and opportunities, and provide leadership with actionable insights that support business growth.
Key Responsibilities

Develop, maintain, and improve statistical and consensus-based demand forecasts across product lines, customers, channels, and regions.
Lead the demand-planning component of the S&OP/IBP process, ensuring cross-functional alignment on forecasts, assumptions, risks, and business priorities.
Analyze historical sales, customer demand, market trends, seasonality, promotional activity, new product introductions, and other internal and external factors affecting demand.
Partner with Sales, Marketing, Finance, Operations, and Supply Planning to gather business intelligence, challenge assumptions, and establish one approved demand plan.
Monitor forecast performance using key metrics such as forecast accuracy, MAPE, bias, and accuracy by product or customer segment.
Identify the root causes of forecast variances and implement corrective actions to improve planning accuracy and reliability.
Support inventory strategies by providing demand-based recommendations for safety stock, service levels, and inventory positioning.
Identify and mitigate risks related to shortages, excess inventory, supply constraints, changing customer requirements, and demand volatility.
Develop demand plans for new product introductions, product transitions, engineering changes, phase-outs, and discontinuations.
Identify and quantify demand risks and opportunities, develop planning scenarios, and communicate recommendations to leadership.
Work closely with Supply Planning to balance customer demand with production capacity, material availability, lead times, and inventory objectives.
Drive continuous improvement in demand-planning processes, systems, reporting, data quality, and cross-functional collaboration.
Evaluate and apply advanced analytics, automation, and AI or machine-learning forecasting capabilities where appropriate.
Prepare and present demand reviews, KPI dashboards, forecast scenarios, and executive-level summaries.
Establish demand-planning policies, procedures, and best practices that support scalable and consistent business processes.
Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Business, Operations, Statistics, Engineering, or a related field.
Minimum of five years of progressive experience in demand planning, forecasting, supply chain planning, production planning, or a related discipline.
Demonstrated experience leading or actively contributing to S&OP or IBP processes.
Proven ability to improve forecast accuracy and convert complex data into actionable business recommendations.
Experience working within an ERP/MRP environment and using demand-planning or supply-chain planning systems.
Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and experience with reporting, visualization, or analytical tools.
Strong understanding of inventory management, safety stock, capacity planning, and supply-and-demand balancing.
Strong analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and decision-making skills.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present information and recommendations to senior leadership.
Ability to collaborate across multiple departments, influence stakeholders, and challenge assumptions constructively.
Preferred Qualifications

Master's degree in Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Analytics, Engineering, or a related field.
APICS/ASCM certification, such as CPIM or CSCP.
Demand-planning experience within aerospace, defense, or a complex manufacturing environment.
Experience managing demand for products with long lead times, constrained materials, engineering changes, or complex bills of material.
Experience with advanced forecasting tools, business-intelligence platforms, or AI/ML-supported planning applications.

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