Director of Planning, Europe

Company Description

BIC® products are recognized all over the world for their quality, safety, affordability and ease of use. The ballpoint pen, the pocket lighter, and the shaver are all part of the daily lives of millions of consumers. These products make BIC® an iconic international brand, present in more than 4 million retail outlets in more than 160 countries around the world.

BIC’s founder, Marcel Bich, understood that to succeed, BIC needed hands-on team members who were willing to take measured risks and assume responsibility for their role in a team. Today, we provide our more than 15,000 team members in 61 countries with the opportunity to invent BIC’s future - together - while honoring our past achievements. We are committed to our team members’ development and empower those who wish to discover different areas of our business or acquire international experiences.

**Job Description**:
As the Director of Planning Europe, you will report to the VP of Supply Chain and be responsible for end-to-end planning and optimization of the SKU portfolio within Europe. This includes co-packing planning, distribution planning, and inventory analysis to ensure the customers' requirements are met and inventory is maintained at optimal levels. The Director of Supply Planning is responsible for managing a team of Supply Planners to plan and distribute products from their supply source.

Leading and developing a team to balance supply and demand in a constraint-based environment (capacity, labor, planned downtime, working capital, storage, etc.). This role is responsible for the development of the short thru long-range production plan based upon various inputs and constraints that include the demand plan, co-packaging capacity, labor, line rates, planned maintenance, holidays, capital installation, working capital, etc.
- Manage local co-packing planning, distribution, and inventory deployment, ensuring accurate components (products & packaging material) forecast and optimizing plan to secure OTIF/Service Level while preventing obsolete.
- Set operational (SL, inventory coverage) goals jointly with Central End-to-end performance manager for the Supply planning function.
- Be in full control and understanding of performance results and action plan of the region.
- Ensure full inventory accuracy and availability to customers in warehouses. Ensure proper root causes analysis by Category Supply manager. Continuously support inventory reduction program and direct supply changes where appropriate.
- Work in close relationship with Central Supply planning and End-to-end performance teams to continuously align on processes and drive end-to-end initiative to increase service level while reducing inventory. Review KPIs and identify improvements in process and parameters.
- Leads key regional S&OP forums and Demand/Supply reconciliation.
- Collaborate with business team and Europe Demand Planning Manager to reach the regional business objectives. Challenge demand forecast when significant deviations from demand plan or history occur.
- Collaborate with Europe Demand Planning Manager to anticipate any challenges by category and any customer impact partner with Sales on best resolution and collaboration plan for key customers.
- Sets capability and performance targets for planning. Hire, lead and develop direct reports.
- Fully collaborate with Central Demand and Supply planning and End-to-end Performance and lead segmentation and strategies to be implemented in regional supply planning teams.

**Qualifications**:

- Bachelors Degree in Supply Chain Management required
- 15-20 years of experience in Supply Chain, preferably at a CPG company
- 10+ years supply planning experience with integrated ERP system skills
- Minimum 7 years of management experience
- Excellent analytical and quantitative skills
- Highly analytical with practical experience in Excel and BI tools (Power BI, Tableau, etc.)
- Experience implementing and using planning tools such as SAP, JDA, JDE/Blue Yonder, Manugistics, Logility, etc.
- Demonstrate knowledge of all parameters, factors, inputs and outputs required to develop effective supply plans and drive best practice and process improvements.
- Ability to effectively bring people together by creating strong morale and spirit in his/her team; shares wins and successes; fosters open dialogue; lets people finish and be responsible for their work; defines success in terms of the whole team; creates a feeling of belonging in the team.
- Can comfortably communicate with senior leaders and execute on agreed upon action plans revolving around customer and internal KPIs.
- Effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortably; can decide and act without having the total picture; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
- Can quickly find common ground and solve problems around peers; can represent his/her own interests and yet be fair to other groups; can solve problems with peers with a minimum