Polymers Inventory Planning Manager

About the role

As a member of our dynamic Supply Chain team, you will play a critical leadership role in setting the strategy, priorities, and operating rhythm for the Polymers Inventory Planning division. In this contributing through others role, you will lead the Polymers Inventory Planning organization, including one supervisor, indirect Inventory Planning reports, and direct Product Line Planner reports, with accountability for aligning team structure, capabilities, metrics, and processes to deliver best-in-class inventory management, service, cost, and cash performance.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Polymers Inventory Planning division, including one Inventory Planning supervisor and Product Line Planners.
• Manage the inventory planning team to support forecasting and planning to accommodate customer shipments, utilizing appropriate inventory planning systems and optimizing transportation modes, as applicable.
• Act as a liaison with Customer Service, Sales, Marketing, Logistics, Operations Planning, and Quality to support inventory planning activities.
• Translate business needs into inventory priorities, resource plans, and team direction.
• Own the team operating model, including roles, escalation paths, decision rights, cadence, standard work, and governance.
• Balance workload, coverage, and support models as business priorities shift.
• Maintain policies, procedures, documentation, controls, and compliance requirements.
• Build and manage metrics, scorecards, and routines for inventory health, service, cost, exceptions, and working capital.
• Support budget, cost, KPI, and performance analysis tied to planning decisions.
• Communicate risks, tradeoffs, recommendations, and decisions to stakeholders.
• Lead issue resolution, root cause analysis, and corrective actions for planning, service, quality, or execution gaps.
• Partner cross-functionally to monitor performance trends, identify improvements, and support business objectives.
• Lead technology, automation, and reporting improvements that increase visibility and decision quality.
• Lead change for process, system, metric, structure, and inventory planning initiatives.

Requirements

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in supply chain, inventory planning, production planning, logistics, manufacturing, or related operations.
• Demonstrated leadership experience, including direct people leadership or significant cross-functional leadership of planning, transformation, or operational improvement initiatives.
• Working knowledge of inventory management, supply planning, order fulfillment, production constraints, service level performance, working capital, and cost tradeoffs.
• Experience using ERP, planning, reporting, or data analysis tools to support operational decision-making; SAP experience is preferred.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills with the ability to translate large data sets and business inputs into clear actions, risks, and recommendations.
• Excellent interpersonal, stakeholder management, and written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to influence across Commercial, Manufacturing, Logistics, Customer Service, Finance, and Supply Chain teams.
• Ability to perform in a fast-paced environment requiring prioritization, escalation, task delegation, and timely decisions with direct impact on business results.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Business, Engineering, Operations, or a related field with 10 or more years of relevant experience preferred; candidates with a high school diploma, military background, or equivalent experience will be considered with 13 or more years of direct and relevant experience.
• APICS CPIM, ASCM CSCP, Lean Six Sigma, or similar certification preferred.
• Experience in chemical, petrochemical, polymers, manufacturing, or asset-constrained supply chain environments.
• Experience with S&OP, S&OE, IBP, supply planning, inventory optimization, production planning, or constraint management.
• Strong capability with SAP, SAP S/4HANA, SAP IBP, Power BI, Excel, or similar ERP, planning, visualization, and analytics tools.
• Ability to improve KPIs, standard work, governance, escalation paths, and decision frameworks tied to inventory, service, cost, working capital, and planning performance.
• Proven ability to lead change, continuous improvement, automation, reporting, or process transformation efforts.
• Ability to anticipate business challenges, assess risk, develop scenarios, communicate tradeoffs, address objections, and recommend practical solutions.
• Ability to assess risk, communicate tradeoffs, align stakeholders, and drive practical solutions in ambiguous or time-sensitive situations.

Skills

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Excellent interpersonal, stakeholder management, and written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to perform in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience with ERP, planning, reporting, or data analysis tools.
• Strong capability with SAP, SAP S/4HANA, SAP IBP, Power BI, Excel, or similar tools.
• Ability to lead change, continuous improvement, automation, reporting, or process transformation efforts.
• Ability to anticipate business challenges, assess risk, develop scenarios, communicate tradeoffs, address objections, and recommend practical solutions.
• Ability to assess risk, communicate tradeoffs, align stakeholders, and drive practical solutions in ambiguous or time-sensitive situations.

Benefits

Competitive base salary, bonus, 401K matching, generous benefits package, pension plan, parking subsidy and employee discounts.