Principal, Integrated Planning; Operations

Job Description

The Principal, Integrated Planning (Operations) leads and owns integrated demand and supply planning across the commercial organisation, establishing and operating a robust fit‑for‑purpose ISOP process that aligns commercial demand with supply, logistics, and operational capability.

The role translates commercial strategy into executable plans, ensuring effective demand forecasting, volume flow, and inventory positioning to support market growth, seasonal demand, and customer requirements. It drives planning discipline, improves cost‑to‑serve, and enables data‑driven decision‑making across the end‑to‑end value chain.

• Design, implement, and lead the Integrated Sales & Operations Planning (ISOP) process.
• Establish planning governance, cadence, and inputs to ensure consistent alignment between demand, supply, and commercial priorities.
• Own the development of integrated demand and supply plans, including scenario modelling and trade‑off analysis to support decision‑making.
• Lead demand planning aligned to seasonal application windows, regional sales plans, and market development priorities.
• Ensure demand plans are robust, realistic, and aligned with operational capability.
• Translate commercial strategy (pricing, volume, and market priorities) into actionable demand, inventory, and supply plans.
• Support product allocation and volume planning aligned to commercial priorities and supply constraints.
• Act as a key interface between commercial and operational teams to ensure alignment between plan and execution.
• Coordinate supply and input requirement planning to ensure alignment with demand and production capabilities.
• Identify and manage risks related to supply constraints, throughput, and operational limitations.
• Drive optimisation of cost‑to‑serve through improved planning assumptions, inventory positioning, and alignment across the value chain.
• Ensure planning reflects customer segmentation, strategic accounts, and route‑to‑market priorities.
• Support differentiated service levels through appropriate inventory and supply planning decisions.
• Provide visibility of trade‑offs between service, cost, and supply availability.
• Develop integrated volume and distribution plans in collaboration with the Logistics Manager, ensuring alignment between demand, supply, and logistics execution.
• Ensure planning outputs are realistic and executable within logistics constraints, including shipping and warehousing capacity.
• Collaborate to support efficient product flow and service delivery, particularly during peak demand periods.
• Define and monitor key planning KPIs (forecast accuracy, service performance, volume delivery, inventory levels).
• Provide structured insights and recommendations to improve planning effectiveness and mitigate risks.
• Embed consistency, discipline, and transparency across planning processes.
• Identify and implement improvements across ISOP, demand planning, and integrated planning processes.
• Establish scalable and fit‑for‑purpose planning frameworks aligned to business growth.
• Drive adoption of tools, dashboards, and standardised approaches to planning.
• Support planning readiness for growth and future portfolio expansion.
• Ensure planning frameworks are flexible and scalable to accommodate increased product complexity over time.

• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain management, business administration, operations management, agricultural economics or related field.
• Postgraduate qualification in supply chain / operations, business or strategy, preferred.
• Desirable: CPIM (Certified in Planning & Inventory Management), CSCP (Certified Supply Chain Professional) or Lean / Continuous Improvement certification (e.g. Lean Practitioner, Six Sigma Green Belt).

• Strong knowledge of S&OP / ISOP frameworks, including implementation and governance.
• Deep understanding of demand forecasting, supply planning, and inventory management principles.
• Knowledge of end‑to‑end supply chain processes, including production, processing, and logistics coordination.
• Understanding of cost‑to‑serve drivers and operational trade‑offs across supply chains.
• Awareness of seasonal demand dynamics and…