CoE Demand Planning Manager

Job Title:        CoE Demand Planning Manager   

Function:        Supply Chain

Reports to:     Global Master Planning Manager

Location:         Dublin

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Ornua is a leading dairy co-operative which sells premium dairy products globally on behalf of its Member Co-operatives, Ireland’s dairy processors and, in turn, Irish dairy farmers. 

Ornua has revenues of €3.4 billion and is supported by a global team of approximately 2,800 employees. The Group operates as a commercial organisation across 10 business units, including 12 production facilities located in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Africa. 

The commercial organisation is responsible for the marketing and sales of Ornua’s consumer brands including Ireland’s most successful food export: Kerrygold. Consumer markets are served by production facilities in Ireland, Germany and the UK and by in-market Sales & Marketing Teams in Asia, Germany, Ireland, MEA, Poland, Spain, rest of Europe and North and Latin America. 

It also manages the procurement of Irish and non-Irish dairy products, the sale of dairy ingredients to food manufacturing and foodservice customers globally, and the implementation of de-risking and trading strategies to manage market volatility. These activities are supported by production facilities and in-market teams in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Africa. 

WHY THIS ROLE IS VALUABLE: 

The CoE Demand Planning Manager is responsible owns the design, governance, and continuous improvement of demand planning practice across all markets, ensuring every market forecasts to a single, consistent standard. The role then aggregates market and category-level demand into one group view, giving leadership a single source of truth on forecast performance, emerging trends, and outliers across markets and category groups. The role sits at the centre of the Group's Ornua Business Planning (OBP) process, balancing central governance with the commercial nuance of local markets.

KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY:

1. Standards & Governance

• Define and own the Group demand planning standard: process design, planning cadence, forecast hierarchy, statistical methods, and data taxonomy applied consistently across all markets.
• Establish common definitions for forecast accuracy, bias, and Forecast Value Add (FVA) so performance is comparable market-to-market and category-to-category.
• Build and maintain playbooks, templates, and tooling standards (demand planning systems, forecasting models, reporting templates) for adoption by local market teams.
• Run a governance/maturity framework to assess each market's compliance with the standard and drive closure of gaps.
• Lead training, onboarding, and ongoing capability-building for market-based demand planners on COE tools and methodology.

2. Group Aggregation & Reporting

• Consolidate market-level demand plans into a single group demand view, aligned by category group, region, and channel.
• Own the monthly/period-end aggregation cycle: data collection, validation, reconciliation, and sign-off with market teams.
• Produce the Group Demand Review pack: forecast performance (accuracy, bias, FVA), trend analysis, and outlier identification by market and category group, for leadership and the OBP cycle.
• Maintain dashboards and reporting tools that give real-time visibility of forecast performance across the group portfolio.

3. Forecast Performance, Trends & Outlier Management

• Track forecast accuracy and bias trends over time, at group, market, and category-group level, isolating root causes of deterioration or improvement.
• Identify statistical and commercial outliers (demand spikes, promotional distortion, new launches, market-specific shocks) and drive markets to investigate and explain variances.
• Distinguish structural trend shifts from noise, and flag emerging risks or opportunities to leadership ahead of the planning cycle.
• Partner with markets to build corrective action plans where performance falls outside agreed tolerance bands.

4. Stakeholder Management & Business Partnering

• Act as the primary link between market demand planning teams and group leadership, supply planning, finance, and commercial functions.
• Represent the consolidated group demand view in OBP leadership forums.
• Influence market planning teams (without direct line authority in most cases) to prioritise standard adoption and data quality.
• Partner with IT/Data teams to evolve the demand planning technology stack in line with COE requirements.

KEY REQUIREMENTS: 

• Minimum 7-10 years' experience in supply chain planning including demand planning, S&OP or related disciplines.
• Proven experience in demand planning and demonstrated leadership experience managing planning teams within a complex FMCG, manufacturing or supply chain environment.  
• Experience operating within regional or global planning organisations.
• Exposure to planning transformation, process improvement and planning technology is desirable.
• Proven experience leading a Centre of Excellence, shared services, or central governance model within a complex organisation.
• Strong demand planning and forecasting expertise, including statistical forecasting, forecast accuracy measurement, and planning systems.
• Advanced analytical capability, with the ability to translate complex, multi-market data into clear insights and business recommendations.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication and influencing skills, with the ability to engage and align senior leaders and cross-functional teams in a matrix environment.
• Strong process discipline and continuous improvement mindset, with experience driving standardisation, governance and change across distributed teams

Closing date: 16th September 2026