Senior Director, Sales & Operations Planning

Summary

Senior Director, Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)

 

The Senior Director, Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) leads the enterprise’s integrated planning processes, ensuring that demand, supply, workforce capacity, and financial plans are aligned across Experiential, Retail, and Branded segments. This role strengthens operational reliability by governing the S&OP cycle, validating planning assumptions, and driving consistent, data informed decision support. The Senior Director leads and develops a high performing enterprise S&OP team, building planning capability, reinforcing discipline, and ensuring scalable execution.

The Senior Director partners closely with Sales, Marketing, Finance, Workforce Planning, Talent Acquisition, IT/Data, and Operations to maintain a unified planning cadence, elevate visibility to risks and opportunities, and support effective resource allocation. By enhancing cross functional coordination, optimizing resource allocation, and reinforcing planning discipline, this role enables predictable execution, improved performance, and overall operational excellence aligned to enterprise goals.

 

Job Will Remain Open Until Filled

Responsibilities

The Company is one of North America’s leading sales and marketing agencies specializing in outsourced sales, merchandising, category management, and marketing services to manufacturers, suppliers, and producers of food products and consumer packaged goods. The Company services a variety of trade channels including grocery, mass merchandise, specialty, convenience, drug, dollar, club, hardware, consumer electronics, and home centers. We bridge the gap between manufacturers and retailers, providing consumers access to the best products available in the marketplace today.

 

 

Responsibilities

• Own and govern integrated sales and supply planning across segments; ensure alignment to enterprise financial targets and strategic priorities; arbitrate cross-functional conflicts within defined decision thresholds
• Lead analytics-driven decision-making by defining requirements, validating insights, and driving short- and mid-term plan adjustments; ensure forecasting outputs support timely, high-quality decisions
• Oversee integrated demand and capacity forecasting processes; govern assumptions, scenario ranges, and reconciliation across segments; approve planning baselines for cycle execution
• Govern trade and promotional planning assumptions within the planning cycle; ensure forecasted lifts, system accuracy, and budget impacts are monitored; escalate material variances for executive review
• Own the performance monitoring framework (plan attainment, fill rates, margin drivers); lead scenario planning for risk mitigation and operational trade-offs; recommend corrective actions and track impact
• Sponsor enhancements to planning tools, data pipelines, and dashboards; ensure systems integrate demand signals with workforce capacity visibility for partners in Talent Acquisition and Workforce Empowerment
• Lead analysis and optimization of planning and execution processes across segments; set standards, stage gates, and SOPs; drive continuous improvement to reduce cycle time and improve forecast accuracy
• Own governance for root cause analysis of missed targets; direct corrective actions with segment leaders; verify improvement through follow-up metrics and accountability reviews
• Govern workforce capacity modeling and resourcing signals by role, skill, and geography; ensure timely, accurate inputs to Talent Acquisition and segment leadership; escalate structural gaps when needed
• Own the operating cadence for planning cycles (calendars, stage gates, inputs, outputs); chair planning decision forums; ensure handoffs, decisions, and KPIs are documented and auditable

 

Qualifications

• Education Requirements: Bachelor’s degree (MBA or advanced degree preferred)
• Experience Requirements: 8–10 years experience in relevant field (Sales Planning or Analytics experience preferred)
• Travel requirement: Some travel expected

 

Supervisor Responsibility

 

Direct Reports: Hires, retains, trains, coaches, guides, directs, and develops direct reports using company-wide processes, tools and resources

Indirect Reports: May delegate work of others and provide guidance, direction and mentoring to indirect reports

 

Required Knowledge and Skills

• Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate complex data into actionable insights and strategies
• Excellent communication and presentation skills,