Position Overview
The Demand Planning & Category Manager is responsible for driving forecast accuracy, optimizing inventory and assortment strategies, and enabling data-driven decision making across the organization. This role sits at the intersection of Sales, Category Management, and Finance, owning the demand plan while partnering closely with key customers to drive revenue growth, inventory productivity, and category expansion.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Demand Planning & Forecasting
- Own the end-to-end demand forecasting process across North America and Europe at the SKU, customer, and regional level
- Lead monthly forecasting reviews with Sales, Finance, and Supply Chain to align on risks, opportunities, and assumptions
- Maintain and optimize StockIQ as the core forecasting tool, ensuring inputs and outputs are accurate and actionable
- Incorporate customer forecasts, POS data, order trends, and market signals into a unified demand plan
- Track forecast accuracy, bias, and performance, driving continuous improvement
Category Management & Assortment Optimization
- Partner with top customers (NAPA, O’Reilly, AutoZone, WORLDPAC, Advance) to lead assortment reviews and inventory expansion opportunities
- Utilize POS, VIO, and competitive benchmarking to identify whitespace, gaps, and SKU productivity opportunities
- Drive assortment recommendations at the store and DC level to improve revenue, service levels, and inventory turns
- Support new product introduction (NPI) strategy, ensuring strong launch plans and adoption across key customers
- Manage product lifecycle strategies, including growth, maturity, and decline phases
Data & Analytics Leadership
- Leverage data tools (SQL, Power BI, ETL processes) to build scalable reporting and insights for internal teams and customers
- Develop and maintain standardized KPIs including forecast accuracy, fill rate, inventory turns, GMROI, and POS velocity
- Support the development of a centralized data ecosystem to improve data quality, accessibility, and decision speed
- Translate complex data into clear, actionable insights for executive leadership
VIO & Market Analysis
- Lead VIO (Vehicles in Operation) analysis to quantify total addressable market and prioritize SKU investments
- Map OE part numbers to Arnott SKUs to improve coverage modeling and forecasting accuracy
- Identify high-opportunity makes/models driving category growth and NPI prioritization
Customer Collaboration & Growth
- Act as a strategic partner to key customers, providing data-driven insights to support their category and inventory decisions
- Support and participate in QBRs and monthly business reviews with actionable recommendations
- Align demand planning with customer inventory strategies to ensure strong initial orders and sustained reorder cadence
- Drive alignment between customer demand signals and internal supply planning
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Supply Chain, Finance, Data Analytics, or related field
- 5+ years of experience in demand planning, category management, or data analytics
- Strong expertise in forecasting tools (StockIQ preferred), SQL, and Power BI
- Experience working with large retail or distribution customers in a data-driven environment
- Proven ability to translate data into actionable business decisions
