Business Planning Lead
Listed on 2026-07-04
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Business
Business Analyst, Financial Analyst
How you will make history here...
The Business Planning Lead provides executive leadership for all aspects of demand management, including leading the Integrated Business Planning (IBP) Demand Review step, to support the delivery of the Annual Operating Planning and Strategic Plan for the business category they serve. This position will play a critical role in working cross-functionally to refine a rolling 24+-month volume (consumption, billings, shipment) and financial business projections, surfacing any gaps and working with business partners to develop effective counter measures to mitigate Risks and maximize Opportunities.
This position gathers intelligence on marketplace factors, commercial investments including A&C, promotions, pricing, distribution, and innovation, to fully integrate them into the demand plan - turning strategic intent into credible volume, revenue, and margin impact.
Operating at the intersection of Commercial Strategy, Finance, and IBP, this leader enables the organization to move from spend-based planning to outcome-based business leadership, strengthening forecast credibility, decision quality, and return on investment driving controllable actions to continuously improve. As a business expert, this leader translates commercial strategy into actionable demand plans that support service, inventory, and revenue objectives in support of the category team.
Whatyou will do...
- Serve as the demand lead within the IBP Demand Review step, representing rolling projections of demand (Consumption, Billings, Shipments) and investment intent, that serve as the basis for AOP, Strategic Planning, and for tracking projections vs Plan in year.
- Surface risks and opportunities, including gaps vs. financial commitments, and recommendations to close.
- Use knowledge of past performance and trends to improve forecasts and guide future planning decisions.
- Enable fact‑based tradeoff discussions across demand, supply, and finance.
- Ensure IBP decisions reflect where the business is choosing to invest to grow.
- Own the integration of commercial investments (marketing spend, trade, pricing, innovation, assortment) into category commercial plans.
- Partner with Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Growth Management to ensure investment assumptions are explicit, modeled, and tracked.
- Ensure new initiatives and reinvestments are reflected as incremental demand, not embedded bias.
- Enable a shift from "did we spend?" to "did it drive demand?".
- Act as the single point of Demand integration across Commercial Sales, Marketing, and Finance.
- Coordinate with Finance to understand the financial implications of business forecasts.
- Collaborate with Data Science to tune forecast models.
- Direct Demand Analysts with a focus on item/location mix forecasting and ensures Supply Chain's ability to balance cost, service, and inventory goals.
- Influence senior leaders through clear narratives connecting strategy, spend, and demand outcomes. Clear narrative needed of both historical performance and future expectations.
- Leverage metrics to evaluate and improve forecast performance, drive accountability, and remove bias.
- Ensure a consistent, standardized process that delivers improved forecast accuracy, with all data and inputs flowing through the tool.
- Partner with Demand Product Owner, Data Science, and Demand Analysts to enhance process and tools, including how to improve forecast models to reflect pricing, promotion, innovation, and marketing signals.
This requires significant collaboration between key partners including Sales, Marketing, Finance, as well as Data Science and Demand Analysts.
What you bring to the table... (Must have)- 10+ years of relevant experience in Commercial Planning, Marketing, Sales, Finance, and/or Strategy within CPG or adjacent industries; multiple functional experiences strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated experience operating in IBP / S&OP process disciplines.
- Bachelors required
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