Vans: Associate Planner, Accessories

Now that you’ve found the job description, what’s next?

Vans is the original brand rooted in the authentic lifestyle of skateboarding. We are driven by our mission to inspire and empower everyone to live “Off The Wall” – embracing the youthful spirit of freedom, non-conformity, and relentless progression. Yesterday’s “Off The Wall” moment is today’s new normal, and at Vans, we believe in constantly outdoing ourselves. Together with our communities across the globe, our vision is to push culture forward because we believe that the pursuit of progression never ends. We are constantly inspired by the future generation of positive catalysts within our community.  

So, before we get to the job details, take a minute to learn a little more about us – our values and our culture. If you can see yourself working side-by-side with a team of people who think and live “Off the Wall,” Vans just may be the place for you.

To learn more about our values and our culture, visit Vans Careers or www.vans.com.

What will you do?

A day in the life of a Global Brand Associate Planner at Vans looks a little like this.

We are seeking somebody with the skills and desire to develop a career in planning. Associate Planners are instrumental in running reports and analyzing sales to help create and scale our end-to-end merchandise planning processes across global markets. Focused on one of our global footwear, apparel and accessories lines, this high-impact, fast-development role will be instrumental in driving sales, margin, and inventory optimization while aligning with the company’s strategic goals and contributing to a financial framework to our product organization. Global Planning will be a new capability organizationally, so this individual will be contributing to a fast-paced environment establishing new processes, tools and reporting to the entire business.

Reporting directly to the Senior Manager of Global Planning, this role will keep the Vans business on track to achieve financial objectives by aligning regional & global plans, and ensuring product availability meets demand. Key responsibilities include creating bottoms-up product level plans that ladder into the merchandise financial plan (MFP), maintaining forward-looking perspective on consumer demand, collaborating on strategic assortments that drive profitability, optimizing inventory, as well as being a subject matter expert on reporting and data analysis for the team.

Let’s break down that day-in-the-life a bit more.

• OTB & financial expertise – Develop  global merch financial plans that align with brand objectives across all key markets to drive sustainable growth. Manages assortment adoption and quantification in partnership with global merch.
• Line architecture – Support pre-season SCO planning with Senior Planners, Support global merch in building line architecture and strategies that align with global brand strategies and meets the needs of consumer demand and margin targets.
• Demand Planning – Maintain, consolidate, and analyze demand forecasts and SKO forecasts across all markets to ensure alignment with global brand strategies at critical milestones.
• Seasonal hind-sighting – develop global reporting across all regions to track demand trends across DTC stores/e-commerce, wholesale, and partners. Provide insights to the Senior and Global Merchandising teams  to help inform future assortment planning and product life cycle.
• Data-Driven decision marketing - Utilize advanced analytics and market data to inform planning decisions and identify growth opportunities. Establish KPIs to monitor performance across sales, margin, and inventory levels. Continuously refine forecasting models to improve accuracy and agility.

What do you need to succeed?

We all have unique skills that we bring to work and celebrate every day. For this role, there are foundation skills you’ll need to succeed and excel. Additionally, while formal education in a related field is great to have, we are most interested in your 1-3 years of experience and professional achievements in Merchandise Planning, Buying, Demand Planning or Financial Planning.

The foundation skills you will need in this position are:

• High degree of emotional intelligence & communication skills (needed in order to foster a collaborative team environment, build strong relationships, and resolve disagreements with candor)
• Cross-functional Communication
• Strong Analytical skills with expertise in demand forecasting, inventory management, and financial modeling.
• Consumer insight and