Senior Demand Planner

Utz Quality Foods is seeking a Senior Demand Plannerto join our Integrated Business Management team. Reporting to the Director, Demand Planning, this role will be responsible for leading and managing tactical and strategic activities over an 18-24-month planning horizon. This position will lead the effort to collaborate with Marketing, Sales, Operations, and Finance with responsibility for developing the aligned consensus forecast for Utz products and customers. This role will apply analytical techniques to project future sales using tools such as statistical modeling, customer and sales inputs, consumer and retail market trends, as well as other commercial and financial demand drivers.

Ideal candidates will have a bachelor's degree and a minimum of 5-7 years of relevant work experience in consumer products, food and beverage or related industry. Candidates should possess a strong analytical aptitude with a demonstrated ability to analyze/interpret data and build quantitative models to solve business problems. Candidates must have excellent communication skills and the flexibility to work in a dynamic environment with multiple demands.

Senior Demand Planner:

• Provide thought leadership to develop demand planning strategy with respect for portfolio and market dynamics.
• Lead the monthly Integrated Business Management process for Demand Planning.
• Coordinate inputs from various functional areas and achieve alignment in forecast assumptions.
• Analyze trends, seasonality, external factors, and other influences that impact demand for Utz products and customers and leverage statistical models to build a demand plan that quantifies the business environment for a rolling 18-month horizon.
• Tune and use appropriate statistical models and parameters to enrich statistical forecasts and generate accurate base demand forecasts in Utz's planning system for a rolling 18 months at market, region, customer, and material/asset levels.
• Manage frequent review of order patterns to inform near-term forecast expectations and communicate tactical deviations to Commercial, Operational, and Financial stakeholders.
• Regularly validate and pivot market/customer-oriented demand plan to align with Supply Planning requirements.
• Offer suggestions and seek commitments from Commercial stakeholders to best meet Customer demand and ensure balance of customer service and cost targets aligned with business strategy.
• Coordinate, facilitate, and support cross functional meetings to drive alignment on end-to-end plans.
• Actively engage in the development of integrated financial perspectives, timely and robust scenario evaluation, and budgeting cycles.
• Develop and lead continuous improvement projects to drive improved competencies and outcomes in the Demand Planning process.
• Champion the development and implementation of a performance-based culture by establishing accountability to forecast accuracy expectations.
• Manage communication with stakeholders by crafting and maintaining reporting to all levels of the organization that summarize relevant and actionable metrics and key performance indicators.

Requirements:

• BA/BS required. MBA/MS desirable. Coursework in a combination of 2 years Economics, Marketing, Computer Science, Supply Chain, and and/or Statistics desirable.
• Minimum 5-7 years of relevant work experience in Consumer Products, Food and Beverage, or related industry with responsibility for or demonstrated collaboration with Sales and Marketing, Operations and Engineering, Demand/Supply Planning desirable.
• Strong analytical aptitude with a demonstrated ability to analyze/interpret data and build quantitative models to solve business problems with a passion for exploring consumer trends and retail growth opportunities in today's ever-changing market environment.
• Excellent oral and written skills, organizational and time-management abilities, effective inter-personal skills, and the ability to work with personnel at all levels of the organization.
• Flexibility and adaptability to the demands and requirements of a dynamic environment with multiple demands and priorities.
• Excellent creative thinking skills with emphasis on developing solutions to complex problems that may not have one clear answer.
• Experience analyzing retail, syndicated retail data, or other causal data, i.e. Nielson, IRI, Market 6.
• Experience utilizing market-leading Demand and Supply Planning software desirable. Advanced and demonstrated skills with business software: Microsoft Dynamics, Excel, Outlook, Access, Word, Power BI modeling.

Spreading Joy Through Food!

Here at Utz, we have a passion for food that our associates enjoy creating, our consumers love, and our customers choose. Our renowned family of brands includes Utz, Golden Flake, Good Health, TGI Friday's, On the Border, Bachman, and Zapp's. We provide a supportive, caring and inclusive environment that offers opportunities for career growth and advancement. We believe it is important to help take care of our associates by providing benefits, resources, and programs that ensure they live their healthiest lives. Our benefit package includes medical, dental, and vision plans, an employer match 401k, profit sharing plan, employee stock purchase planand much more. Join OneUtzTeam and help us spread joy through food for generations to come!

An Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.