Associate Director, Demand Planning

Who We Are

About your role

The Associate Director, Demand Planning is responsible for leading and overseeing the end-to-end demand planning function across the organization. This role provides strategic direction and operational leadership to the Demand Planning team, ensuring that robust, accurate, and insight-driven demand forecasts are developed to support the company's sales goals, commercial strategy, and supply chain efficiency. The Associate Director serves as a key bridge between Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Supply Chain, driving cross-functional alignment through an effective S&OP process and embedding a culture of continuous improvement in forecasting excellence.

What You'll Do

Strategic Leadership & Team Management

• Lead, develop, and mentor the Demand Planning team (including Supply Planning and Customer Service team), setting clear performance objectives and fostering a high-performance culture.
• Define the demand planning vision, strategy, and roadmap in alignment with overall business and sales strategy.
• Partner with HR and senior leadership on talent development, succession planning, and capability building within the demand planning function.

Demand Planning & Forecasting Excellence

• Oversee the development and execution of accurate, rolling demand plans across all product categories and channels, ensuring alignment to company sales targets and commercial strategies.
• Drive continuous improvement of forecasting tools, methodologies, and systems; evaluate and recommend technology upgrades to enhance accuracy, bias and efficiency.
• Set and govern forecast accuracy KPIs and hold the team accountable to targets, implementing structured root-cause analysis and corrective action planning for forecast misses.
• Ensure robust integration of NPD, promotional volumes, pricing changes, seasonality, and product transitions into the demand planning process.

IBP_ Demand Management Review and S&OP Process Ownership

• Lead and facilitate the DMR (Demand Management Review) to assess the latest unconstrained forecast to identify any gaps or positive variances to the Volume, Price and Mix elements of the AOP & MTP.
• Additionally, reviews any risks and opportunities to the current forecast. It agrees on and tracks progress to actions addressing those R&O’s.
• Lead and facilitate the monthly S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning) cycle, ensuring executive-level engagement and decision-making on demand, supply, and inventory trade-offs.
• Act as the primary owner of the demand review stage of the S&OP process, presenting consolidated demand outlooks and risk/opportunity assessments to senior leadership.
• Drive cross-functional alignment across Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Supply Chain to produce a single, agreed-upon demand consensus plan.

Inventory & Supply Chain Optimization

• Oversee inventory strategies to ensure optimal stock levels that support service level objectives while minimizing excess and obsolete inventory exposure.
• Provide senior-level oversight on supply shortage management, escalation protocols, and customer impact mitigation planning.
• Lead design-change and product transition planning from a demand perspective to minimize supply disruption and write-off risk.

Stakeholder Engagement & Commercial Partnership

• Build and sustain strong relationships with key internal stakeholders including Sales Directors, Trade Marketing, Finance Business Partners, and Supply Chain leadership.
• Represent the Demand Planning function in commercial and strategic forums, providing data-driven insights and recommendations that influence business decisions.
• Champion demand planning best practices across the organization through capability-building programs, stakeholder education, and cross-functional workshops.

Reporting & Analytics

• Oversee the generation and review of daily, weekly and monthly forecast accuracy metrics, business performance reports, and executive dashboards.
• Drive the analytical agenda within demand planning — leveraging data to surface trends, risks, and opportunities and translate them into actionable business recommendations.
• Monitor industry trends and competitive dynamics that may impact demand patterns, proactively adjusting plans as needed.

What's in it for you

What You need to be successful

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field

• 10–12 years of experience in demand planning, supply chain, or related functions within FMCG or consumer goods, including 4–5 years in a team leadership role

• Proven experience leading S&OP processes and improving forecast accuracy through process, system, or capability enhancements

• Strong expertise in demand forecasting, statistical modeling, inventory management, and end-to-end supply chain operations

• Experience with demand planning systems (e.g., SAP IBP/APO, TPM/TPO) and Distributor Management Systems (DMS); advanced Excel skills with BI tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau) as a plus

• Strong leadership, strategic thinking, and commercial acumen with the ability to connect operational planning to business outcomes

• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, analytical, problem-solving, negotiation, and cross-functional collaboration skills, with the ability to drive alignment in complex environments

Our DEI Commitment

At Suntory, we recognize that diverse knowledge, perspectives, and backgrounds contribute to our collective success. We are committed to fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace where all individuals can bring their whole selves to work every day, regardless of race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or any other protected characteristic.

Our recruitment and selection processes are designed to highlight what Suntory offers as an employer while allowing candidates to share their unique skills and experiences. We understand that career trajectories vary, and if you believe your experience/background can benefit our team, we encourage you to apply. We endeavor to make our interview process as inclusive as possible and offer reasonable accommodations as needed. Together, we can cultivate a workplace where everyone can thrive and propel our mission of Growing for Good.