Senior Demand Planner

In 2024, Stanley – famous for its esthetic and durable drink containers – celebrated its 111th anniversary and tripled its sales. The company has achieved record-breaking growth thanks to its strong product offering and consumers’ eager social media engagement. The financially savvy Senior Demand Planner will forecast demand based on in-depth data analysis, ensuring Stanley can fulfill continued growth in demand.

About Stanley

Founded in 1913, Stanley has become iconic in recent years for its unique and high-quality drinkware. In recent years, the company saw exponential growth, especially since the pandemic – when Stanley’s trendy designs and handy products became popular for camping trips or hikes. The company then expanded its product range, helping change how customers store and consume their food. The omnichannel business model has leveraged unprecedented sales growth, with a recent expansion into soft material goods, such as backpacks and cross-body bags.

To achieve this significant growth, Stanley has focused on its two core strengths: innovation and sustainability. They have added more designs, including a line of products in vibrant colors to appeal to various demographics. Stanley’s sustainability strategy is to create products that last a lifetime, using recycled materials and wrapping products in paper packaging.

The globally operating brand, owned by HAVI, is headquartered in Seattle, U.S., with a growing regional team in Amsterdam and additional locations such as Shanghai and Rio de Janeiro. For the level of growth that Stanley is experiencing, accurate and dynamic demand planning is crucial. The Senior Demand Planner will be key in ensuring Stanley continues meeting customers’ expectations.

Vacancy: Senior Demand Planner

The Senior Demand Planner will manage the sales forecasts of over 7,000 SKUs in the B2B and B2C channels, extensively using data to drive adequate decision making. This person will be a key member of the Operations team and report to the Senior Planning Manager EMEA and APAC.

Forecast reliability
The Senior Demand Planner will develop B2B and B2C business demand forecasts, based on a robust understanding of channel growth, historical demand, product trends, and other (external) causal factors. They utilize quantitative data, customer insights, and market intelligence, and analyze promotional lift and other drivers of growth or slow-down in demand.

They will track and review forecast accuracy, reconcile forecast exceptions, and tune forecasts as needed – all in collaboration with Supply Planning, to ensure successful inventory management throughout each item’s lifespan. The Senior Demand Planner will also develop recommendations and manage system settings for outliers, as well as monitoring KPIs such as fill rate, forecast accuracy, and plan conformity. They will also manage new demand forecasting units and product introduction processes.

Finance lens
This person will identify areas of risk and opportunity for Stanley’s online business, reconcile forecasts with Finance, and proactively communicate issues or opportunities. In general, the Senior Demand Planner is expected to be able to incorporate finance metrics, such as margins, into the demand plans. They are also expected to bring insights from a product perspective into demand planning, to complement the account-based forecasting which has been Stanley EMEA’s go-to approach so far.

They will work cross-functionally with the Buying, Planning, and commercial teams to validate inventory needs, provide selling insights, and assist in new product and promotional planning to align planning forecasts with finance and marketing predictions. The Senior Demand Planner will also collaborate with Data and CRM teams, to incorporate key customer insights into Stanley EMEA’s forecasting capabilities.

Dynamic transformation phase
This person is not afraid to roll with the punches in a chaotic context, as Stanley EMEA anchors its business culture and processes step-by-step, in line with the company’s exponential growth. The levels of enthusiasm and passion among colleagues are at an all-time high – while structures are still being implemented. The Senior Demand Planner is eager to contribute to this transformation, while also hitting the ground running in their field of expertise: experimenting, taking initiative, asking questions, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure integrated forecast planning.

“In this phase, we need entrepreneurial, flexible, and open-minded people. For example, the Senior Demand Planner needs to be scrappy enough to initially do spreadsheet-based forecasting, and then be comfortable and skilled using a dedicated system once it is implemented. The right candidate truly thrives in this dynamic environment, characterized by growth and transformation with processes not yet set in stone.” – Jimi Prummel, Senior Planning Manager EMEA and APAC

The right candidate for this role demonstrates passion and ownership, ensuring optimal fulfillment capabilities through excellent demand planning. They are eager to understand the reasons and insights behind the data – thus keeping an eye on both the details and the bigger picture. They are great at time management and keen to take the initiative, prioritize, problem-solve, identify streamlining opportunities, and suggest process improvements. And they show resilience in a complex, occasionally ambiguous environment.

In this role, an independent, self-starting, and highly analytical demand planner will help build the Stanley EMEA organization and have a major impact on its continued growth and success.

Interested?

Stanley is working with Top of Minds to fill this vacancy.
To express your interest, please contact Annelijn Nijhuis at annelijn.nijhuis@topofminds.com