Job Description
The Manager, Brand and Portfolio Demand Planning, is accountable for working cross functionally with strategic Commercial Teams, such as Marketing, Innovation and Finance to build and maintain an integrated depletion plan using data and insights.
This manager will be responsible for translating Brand and portfolio depletion planning objectives into executable plans with a team of two Demand Planners. This role serves as the primary demand counterpart to Marketing, bridging brand strategy and execution by translating portfolio decisions, innovation plans, and cannibalization impacts into a coherent demand outlook and leads the Portfolio Review process.
Role ensures that the demand plan is credible, challenged, and defended at the right level and is strategically aligned with brand, innovation, and long‑range business plans.
This role requires a professional with a strong leadership background, the ability to inspire a team, and a track record of delivering results.
Key Responsibilities:
- Brand & Portfolio Demand Ownership
- Own and defend brand‑level demand volumes, drivers, and Risks & Opportunities (R&Os) across all regions
- Ensure brand assumptions are aligned and approved with Marketing prior to integration into regional demand plans
- Lead the Monthly Portfolio Review meeting and process, framing brand tradeoffs, risks, and opportunities
- Ensure the demand impact of brand strategy is clearly reflected in IBP forums
- Long‑Range & Strategic Planning
- Own alignment of the Long‑Range Plan (LRP) and 5‑Year Forecast with Brand Plans and Business Plans
- Ensure consistency between LRP, Annual operating plan (AOP), and near‑term demand plans
- Translate strategic brand initiatives into executable demand assumptions
- Innovation & Portfolio Management
- Ensure NPI launch and post‑launch demand are clearly incorporated into forecasts, highlighting risks and cannibalization
- Own and govern the cannibalization process, ensuring impacts are modeled, communicated, and reflected in our forecasting tool o9
- Partner with NPI & Portfolio Demand Planner to ensure innovation readiness and portfolio lifecycle integrity
- Stakeholder Leadership & Alignment
- Provide leadership in all Brand Demand Prep and Portfolio forums
- Act as the senior demand partner to Marketing leadership
- Ensure tight alignment and communication with regional Demand Managers to maintain a single, coherent demand narrative
- People Leadership & Capability Building
- Coach Demand Planners on executive presence, structured storytelling, and stakeholder management
- Own the overall brand‑level demand accuracy target and improvement roadmap
- Support our tool and process build and resulting future state processes as defined in our project roll out.
- Build a diverse, highly agile team focused on successful outcomes and continuously identify areas of opportunity to improve, streamline or challenge the status quo.
- Support the creation and delivery of critical planning based KPIs
Role Expertise
- Working experience, 6+ years in planning; commercial, demand or business planning.
- Experience leading a team in delivering continued strong results
- Experience in CPG industry, preferred.
- Experience leveraging data and analytics solutions, such as o9 and Power BI, preferred
Individual Skills
- Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex concepts and influence stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
- Demonstrated ability to lead customer facing meetings and collaborative efforts across all levels of the organization.
- Proven ability to define tasks and metrics to implement a day/week/month in the life of their team to clearly execute responsibilities in support of the broader vision.
- Demonstrated leadership capabilities in critical thinking, decision making, effectively transmitting ideas and opinions, and the ability to grow from their experiences and adapt to new situations.
- Skilled collaborator with an ability to work cross-functionally with co-workers, related internal functions, external partners, and on project teams.
- Experience in using digital solutions to drive performance along with a demonstrated ability to use data to tell a story - an ability to communicate effectively across all formats.
- Demonstrated ability to leverage data & analytics to identify trends and opportunities to drive performance within their team.
- Must be a detail-minded, analytical, deadline-oriented self-starter who can work under pressure and meet tight deadlines.
- Adaptive: Enable flexibility and support that fits team members’ unique needs
Mindsets & Behaviors
- Passion to challenge the status quo and find new solutions and drive out of the box ideas – loves and embraces change.
- Consumer obsessed – commitment to delivering a best-in-class customer experience.
- Believes in a non-hierarchical culture of collaboration, transparency, safety, and trust.