Senior Manager, Technical Demand Planning

The Senior Manager of Technical Demand Planning is responsible for building and leading the Demand Planning Center of Excellence (COE), driving the development of new capabilities and best practices in demand planning across the organization. This role involves supporting brand Demand Planners, fostering collaboration, and ensuring the implementation and adoption of new processes and tools. The Sr. Manager will work closely with cross-functional teams, including Supply Chain, Asset Management, Brand Technical Operations, Brand Finance and IT, to optimize forecasting accuracy, support the brand S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning) process to align demand forecasts with business objectives and enable data-driven decision-making. The ideal candidate will have proven leadership experience in demand planning, a passion for process improvement, and the ability to deliver significant business impact

Essential Functions:

Leadership:

• Build and lead the Demand Planning COE, and indirectly manage the brand demand planners

• Establish a clear vision and strategy enabling the brands to deliver on their goals

• Partner with key stakeholders to foster a collaborative working environment that embraces continuous improvement and ownership

• Support and mentor brand demand planners   

• Engage in selling and influencing to build coalitions up, down, and across the organization in the pursuit of delivering business outcomes

• Promote and celebrate team wins!

Develop and Implement Best Practices

• Create and standardize demand planning processes, tools, and methodologies

  • Enable scenario planning and risk management to provide leadership with options and trade-offs

• Automate processes and embrace manage by exception approach to enable planners to focus their time where it matters most

• ork closely with Asset, Maintenance Strategy, and Inventory Control teams to improve accuracy and visibilty to demand signals through the lifecycle

• Collaborate cross-functionally to identify and resolve data quality issues

• Evaluate new data sources and models and their value add to the forecast accuracy

• Identify opportunities to fully leverage planning tool capabiliteis, including statistical, AI and ML.

Support and Facilitate S&OP Process

• Actively promote and champion the S&OP process, ensuring it aligns with organizational goals and is seen as a key driver of successful outcomes.

• Work closely with cross-functional teams to foster a culture of ownership for the process and its outcomes.

• Establish disciplined processes to ensure the fundamental pillars of S&OP are in place, manage conflict, and empower ownership

Benchmarking and Reporting

• Develop and benchmark performance measures to track progress and drive continuous improvement (MAPE, WMAPE, Bias, Value Add, Etc)

• Establish Management reporting highlighting KPI tracking and metrix

• Facilitate brand Demand Review, S&OP, and cross-functional meetings

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Scope: This role directly enhances operational efficiency and service reliability by ensuring the right technical spare parts are available at the right time and location as efficiently as possible. Problem solving: The successful candidate will possess a broad range of technical competencies and problem solving methods to solve complex supply chain challenges, included but not limited to: Availability Challenges: Ensures critical spare parts are available when needed by improving demand visibility over an extended time horizon. Inventory Inefficiencies: Reduces excess and dead stock through successful execution of demand planning, improving working capital utilization. Cross-Functional Misalignment: Bridges gaps between departments (e.g., finance, procurement, logistics, technical operations) to enable coordinated planning and execution. Operational Disruptions: Facilitates the S&OP  process to identify demand and supply gaps, model scenarios, present options to leadership, and guide stakeholders to make decisions. Process Gaps: Drives continuous improvement initiatives to streamline planning workflows, enhance forecasting accuracy, and improve responsiveness. Team Capability: Builds and transforms the planning team to elevate performance, foster innovation, and support scalable growth.

• Impact: Improved Service Reliability: Ensures timely availability of critical spare parts, reducing downtime and enhancing operational continuity. Operational Efficiency: Streamlines planning processes and drives alignment across departments, improving responsiveness and execution. Strategic Decision Support: Provides data-driven insights and scenario modeling to guide leadership in making informed supply chain decisions. Improved Budgeting & Spend Management: Enable bottoms-up budgeting, and improved spend vs plan visibility through S&OP.

• Problem solving: The successful candidate will possess a broad range of technical competencies and problem-solving methods to solve complex supply chain challenges, included but not limited to:    Availability Challenges: Ensures critical spare parts are available when needed by improving demand visibility over an extended time horizon.  Inventory Inefficiencies: Reduces excess and dead stock through successful execution of demand planning, improving working capital utilization. Cross-Functional Misalignment: Bridges gaps between departments (e.g., finance, procurement, logistics, technical operations) to enable coordinated planning and execution. Operational Disruptions: Facilitates the S&OP process to identify demand and supply gaps, model scenarios, present options to leadership, and guide stakeholders to a decision. Process Gaps: Drives continuous improvement initiatives to streamline planning workflows, enhance forecasting accuracy, and improve responsiveness. Team Capability: Builds and transforms the planning team to elevate performance, foster innovation, and support scalable growth.                                                                                              

• Leadership: Strategic Thinking: Ability to align multiple stakeholder gruops with broader business goals, anticipate future needs, and develop scalable solutions. Team Development: Builds and transforms a high-performing team through coaching, mentoring, and talent development.             Cross-Functional Collaboration: Effectively partners with procurement, logistics, technical operations, and other stakeholders to drive alignment and execution. Decision-Making & Problem Solving: Uses data and scenario modeling to make informed decisions, resolve supply chain challenges, and improve service levels. Change Leadership: Leads transformation initiatives, adapts to evolving business needs, and drives continuous improvement in planning processes. Influence & Communication: Communicates clearly across all levels, gains buy-in for strategies, and fosters a culture of transparency and accountability. Results Orientation: Focuses on measurable outcomes such as cost reduction, inventory optimization, and service reliability.

Essential/Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in information technology, computer science, or related field or Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Engineering, Statistics, or a related field

• Demonstrated ability to lead transformations, influence stakeholders and apply change management

• Strong collaboration and communication skills

• Ability to work in complex organizations under ambiguous circumstances

• Deep technical expertise in forecasting, demand planning and S&OP.  

• Understanding E2E supply chain

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills conveying information succinctly and clearly with the confidence to present to leadership teams

• Expert level knowledge of Microsoft Office, particularly Excel and Power Point

• Able to work with a diverse set of people from multiple countries

• Ability to manage competing priorities

   

Preferred:

• Certification in supply chain management (e.g., APICS, CPF, CSCP, etc) is preferred

• Working knowledge of Kinaxis or similar planning tool

• Working knowledge of AMOS

• Strong leadership and strategic thinking – able to set a vision, engage up, down, and across functions, and drive alignment to actions

Essential experience required

• Experience supporting entertainment operations, hospitality operations, cruise 8+ years Required:

• Minimum 7 years of experience within demand planning or related function

• Minimum 5 years of experience with leading Demand Planning and/or S&OP in a management role

Preferred:

• Previous MRO experience

• Maritime or related industry experience

Travel: Less than 25% with shipboard travel likely

Work Conditions:Work primarily in a climate-controlled environment with minimal safety/health hazard potential.

Physical Demands. Must be able to remain in a stationary position at a desk and/or computer for extended periods of time.

This position is classified as “in-office.”  As an in-office role, it requires employees to work from a designated Carnival office in South Florida Monday through Thursday each week. Employees may work from their homes on Fridays.  Candidates must be located in (or willing to relocate to) the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area. 

Offers to selected candidates will be made on a fair and equitable basis, taking into account specific job-related skills and experience.   

At Carnival, your total rewards package is much more than your base salary. All non-sales roles participate in an annual cash bonus program, while sales roles have an incentive plan. Director and above roles may also be eligible to participate in Carnival’s discretionary equity incentive plan. Plus, Carnival provides comprehensive and innovative benefits to meet your needs, including: 

• Health Benefits: 
  • Cost-effective medical, dental and vision plans 
  • Employee Assistance Program and other mental health resources 
  • Additional programs include company paid term life insurance and disability coverage  
• Financial Benefits: 
  • 401(k) plan that includes a company match 
  • Employee Stock Purchase plan 
• Paid Time Off 
  • Holidays – All full-time and part-time with benefits employees receive days off for 8 company-wide holidays, plus 2 additional floating holidays to be taken at the employee’s discretion.  
  • Vacation Time – All full-time employees at the manager and below level start with 14 days/year; director and above level start with 19 days/year.  Part-time with benefits employees receive time off based on the number of hours they work, with a minimum of 84 hours/year.  All employees gain additional vacation time with further tenure. 
  • Sick Time – All full-time employees receive 80 hours of sick time each year.  Part-time with benefits employees receive time off based on the number of hours they work, with a minimum of 60 hours each year.   
• Other Benefits 
  • Complementary stand-by cruises, employee discounts on confirmed cruises, plus special rates for family and friends 
  • Personal and professional learning and development resources including tuition reimbursement  
  • On-site Fitness center at our Miami campus 

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