Senior Planning Manager – EMEA & APAC

Stanley, the iconic brand behind the well-known green thermos, has achieved viral social media success in recent years. The company, founded in 1913, experienced record-breaking growth with its stylish and durable product line of food and drink containers. The Senior Planning Manager oversees the demand and supply planning for EMEA and APAC, and plays a crucial role in facilitating Stanley’s continued growth.

About Stanley

For more than a century, Stanley has maintained its entrepreneurial spirit. And as the company keeps focusing on its core strengths: innovation and sustainability; social media has become a powerful advertising channel. After all, if a video of a fire destroying an entire car except for the Stanley thermos goes viral, the ad writes itself. As a result, the company has enjoyed tremendous success in recent years.

Stanley continues to create new products and connect with consumers worldwide, including its vibrant, colorful products that have successfully tapped into a younger consumer segment. People are also increasingly interested in Stanley for its sustainability mission: creating products that last a lifetime, using recycled materials, and paper packaging.

Stanley is headquartered in Seattle and is part of HAVI – a global, privately owned company that employs 10,000+ people and serves customers in over one hundred countries. They also have offices in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Rio de Janeiro, Cariacica, Manaus, and Manila. The EMEA region is served by Stanley’s Amsterdam office, where the team is rapidly expanding. The Senior Planning Manager will be responsible for supply and demand planning across EMEA and APAC.

Vacancy: Senior Planning Manager EMEA & APAC

The Senior Planning Manager of EMEA and APAC leads short- and long-term supply and demand planning for key product lines, in both markets. This is an all-round planning role, as it combines forecasting and buying.

It also involves a managerial component, leading the EMEA planning team in Amsterdam and the APAC planning team in Korea. For APAC, two team members are already in place; for EMEA, the Senior Planning Manager will hire and build the team from scratch and report to the Senior Supply Chain Director in Seattle.

Integrated supply and demand planning
The Senior Planning Manager oversees buying and forecasting operations, leading and supporting integrated supply and demand planning activities across the organization. They are responsible for monthly and weekly production plans for factories, and distribution or fulfillment partners, and continuous improvement.

The Senior Planning Manager will review, identify, and mitigate any short-term and long-range imbalances of supply and demand and constrained supply requirements within a horizontal supply chain. They will use quantitative analysis and data-driven decision-making to support cost, inventory, and service objectives. They also oversee lead times and variability, ensuring the supply availability meets and exceeds service, revenue, and profitability targets.

This role includes creating implementing, and monitoring KPIs to drive business improvements. The Senior Planning Manager will coordinate with Sales, Product Creation, and Supply Chain teams to facilitate new rollouts and discontinuations.

Scale-up mentality
Stanley’s significant growth – forecast numbers have tripled since January 2024 – calls for flexibility, swift adjustments, and a scale-up mentality. For example, new tools are being implemented and the Senior Planning Manager will oversee the team’s training in their use, while current tools are still in place during this transition phase. With its fast growth expected to continue, the Senior Planning Manager needs to adjust quickly and motivate the team to stay agile.

“Our fast growth is the biggest challenge for this role, both in terms of the planning responsibilities and the management component. A senior candidate with a solid management track record will bring the experience needed to be successful in this context.” – Thomas Laster, Senior Supply Chain Director of Stanley 

To succeed, the Senior Planning Manager has extensive experience in both supply and demand planning. They possess strong analytical skills and business acumen, and they communicate effectively.

At Stanley, collaboration and teamwork are key and initiative and ownership are encouraged. This makes for a positive working culture, where helping each other to achieve common objectives is an important driver of employee satisfaction across the company.

In this role, an experienced senior planning manager will contribute greatly to the success of one of the most exciting lifestyle brands in the world.

Interested?

Stanley is working with Top of Minds to fill this vacancy.
To express your interest, please contact Emma de Wit at emmadewit@topofminds.com