Retail Planner

The Senior Retail Planner role involves driving merchandise and inventory planning strategies to maximize sales, profitability, and inventory productivity for a premium personal care retail brand. You will lead planning processes, influence buying decisions, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure the right product mix is available in the right stores at the right time. Your responsibilities will include developing annual, seasonal, and in-season merchandise financial plans that align with business objectives. You will lead promotion planning to ensure campaigns are commercially viable and supported by adequate inventory. Managing Open-to-Buy (OTB) frameworks and assortment strategies will be crucial to optimizing sales and profitability. As the Senior Retail Planner, you will lead accurate forecasting for sales, stock, and markdowns to ensure optimal inventory productivity. Overseeing allocation and replenishment strategies across all stores will be essential to maintaining ideal stock levels. You will also drive 5-year business planning, incorporating growth projections and new market opportunities. You will conduct in-depth performance analysis using key performance indicators (KPIs) such as sell-through, inventory turns, gross margin, and promotional ROI. Regularly reviewing P&L performance, you will provide insights to optimize profitability. Presenting annual business plans and quarterly forecasts to senior management will be part of your role, balancing short-term results with long-term brand growth. Collaboration with merchandising, buying, supply chain, and marketing teams is crucial to ensuring cohesive business execution. Aligning with retail operations to address store-level performance and inventory challenges will be important. You will collaborate with marketing to align promotional calendars with product availability and business priorities. Continuously improving planning, allocation, and promotional management processes using best practices is expected. Mentoring and developing junior planners and analysts to foster a high-performance planning culture will be part of your responsibilities. Championing the adoption of advanced planning tools and analytics to enhance decision-making will also be key. The ideal candidate will have a Bachelor's degree in Business, Retail Management, or a related field (MBA preferred) and at least 10 years of experience in retail planning, merchandise planning, or buying, with a minimum of 3 years in a leadership role. A proven track record in premium beauty, fashion, or personal care retail planning is required. Strong expertise in promotion management, annual business planning, and multi-year strategic planning is essential. Proficiency in P&L review, OTB management, assortment planning, and forecasting is necessary. Advanced analytical skills with proficiency in Excel and retail planning systems (SAP, JDA, Oracle, or similar) are expected. Strong leadership, stakeholder management, and communication skills are also crucial for success in this role.,