Head of Demand Planning

LeMieux is the UK's fastest-growing equestrian and lifestyle brand, with a global community and big ambitions. Our success is driven by talented people who share our passion for innovation, collaboration and excellence. We have an exciting new opportunity for a Head of Demand Planning to join our team and help shape the future of our brand.

We source a large range from many factories across Asia. Stock is consolidated through Asian hubs and shipped to our three warehouses in the UK, the Netherlands and the USA, serving wholesale and e-commerce customers in every market. Getting the right stock to the right warehouse, at the right time and at the right cost, is now one of the biggest levers on customer experience and cash.

Merchandising decides what we sell, and our Regional Heads own the demand forecast. As Head of Demand Planning, you'll turn that forecast into a supply plan that gets stock from factory to warehouse. You'll sequence intake, hub consolidation and shipments, set stock cover, and build in contingency for when things go wrong. Think of it as air traffic control for our inventory.

This is a new role, reporting into the Supply Chain Director. As the business has grown, we have a large range being sourced from many suppliers that is being consolidated into hubs before being shipped to the UK, the EU, and the USA, creating challenges and opportunities on availability and cost. This role is right at the very heart of ensuring that we have the right inventory, in the right place, at the right time, and at the best cost, to ensure our customers have a great experience

• Coordinate the demand plan. Run the monthly demand planning cycle and bring together the regional forecasts, which are owned and signed off by the Regional Heads. Challenge them on accuracy and bias, and make sure NPD, marketing and promotional plans are reflected. A Demand Planner will join your team.
• Build the supply plan. Convert the demand forecast and the Merchandising OTB into an integrated supply plan. Work back from the stock needed in each warehouse through hubs, freight forwarders and suppliers, covering factory intake, hub consolidation, despatch and transit mode.
• Set stock policy. Define stock cover and safety stock by product type, with a particular focus on Never Out of Stock (NOS) lines and seasonal launches. Allow for forecast error and lead-time variability.
• Balance cost, availability and cash. Make the calls on bulk versus split shipments and sea versus air. Weigh availability against working capital and storage costs.
• Deploy and rebalance stock. Own allocation into the three warehouses and rebalancing across sites, channels and regions.
• Plan capacity. Work with Operations on a rolling 12-month view of warehouse space, labour and shipping capacity, especially for peak and seasonal launches.
• Lead the supply side of S&OP. Recommend interventions that protect OTIF while balancing cost and working capital. Spot and resolve risks early, including supplier delays, raw material shortages, port congestion and route disruption.
• Work with Buying. Make sure drawdowns against supplier contracts move stock efficiently.
• Partner with Finance. Give forward visibility of inventory investment, stock cover, turns, aged stock, provisioning and cash requirements.
• Own the KPIs. OTIF, NOS availability by region, service levels, stock cover, inventory turns, aged and discontinued stock, write-offs, and forecast accuracy and bias.
• Improve tools and data. Identify and implement planning tools, and fix data accuracy where systems are immature.
• Build the team. Lead and develop the planning team as it grows.

• Supply planning leadership in a business shipping from many factories to multiple warehouses in different countries, ideally the UK, EU and US. A single warehouse in one country won't give you the right experience for this role.
• A background in apparel, footwear or lifestyle brands, with fluency in OTB, WSSI, OTIF, stock cover and NOS. You'll understand how merchandising plans feed the supply plan.
• Experience as the senior planning lead, having defined, built and run the planning process yourself.
• A track record of building planning discipline where systems and data were immature.
• Strong analytical skills, including stock cover, safety stock and scenario modelling.
• The credibility to challenge and align Commercial, Merchandising, Buying, Operations and Finance.

• Experience across wholesale and e-commerce channels
• Experience…