Principal Program Manager - Demand Planning

About the role

We're seeking a Principal Demand Planner who enables the strategy and execution of forecasting and decision making through a strong combination of modeling, business intelligence, and market and industry trend analysis. The ideal candidate partners with supply management functions, drives process improvement, and iterates on strategic requirement forecasting.

Responsibilities

• Develop, iterate, and maintain end-to-end long-range demand planning models at the customer, initiative, SKU, and geo level to predict product demand and inform Supply Chain.
• Build demand plans based on strategic goals, business trends, and stakeholder inputs, collaborating with Engineering, Customer Management, Product Management, Networking, Data Center, and Finance teams.
• Socialize demand plans with senior leaders in Capacity Planning, Operations, Supply Chain, Engineering, Customer Management, and Finance to achieve alignment.
• Identify demand forecast risks and develop prioritized, effective, and durable mitigation strategies.
• Balance long-range planning with short-term execution, ensuring customer demand is met through end-to-end supply chain understanding.
• Collaborate with Product Management to understand product lifecycle, transitions, and their impact on forecasting.
• Provide direct inputs and analysis of demand data to management, Finance, and operational teams for the corporate S&OP process.
• Develop routine and ad-hoc demand analyses and reports for senior management.
• Maintain demand planning review processes to improve forecast accuracy.
• Translate business strategy into forecasting models, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
• Work with Business Intelligence teams to translate planning processes into system models for resource planning that meet capacity and performance requirements.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Supply Chain Management, Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of relevant experience in demand planning and forecasting.
• Extensive experience developing demand plans and forecasts for new and existing products.
• Understanding of the impact of revenue goals, customer usage, overhead, buffer, data center space, and power availability on capacity management.
• Advanced Excel modeling skills, including building complex forecasting models using multiple inputs.
• Ability to dive deep into data while synthesizing findings for executive-level communication.
• Expert-level Excel data analytics skills to drive action and outcomes.
• Experience working with Vice Presidents and executive leadership.
• Experience with infrastructure hardware, including memory, CPUs, JBODs, servers, and related technologies.
• Ability to read and interpret product BOMs and technical documentation.
• Experience with forecasting and demand planning for server, storage, and networking products.

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous cloud experience.
• Ability to thrive in ambiguity and make high-judgment decisions from ambiguous situations.
• Experience translating large amounts of data into useful information and drawing meaningful conclusions.
• Experience maintaining key operational metrics that measure demand planning performance and drive continuous improvement.
• Experience building and improving business processes.
• Ability to work with technical and non-technical business owners to overcome obstacles and deliver results.
• 7+ years of experience using Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Outlook, and Access).
• Working proficiency in SQL.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present complex information clearly.
• Ability to meet tight deadlines and prioritize workloads effectively.

Skills

• Leading contributor individually and as a team member, providing direction and mentoring to others.
• Sought out as an expert within the team and organization.
• Able to operate in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment with non-routine and complex work.
• Demonstrated resilience in driving change within a dynamic environment.
• Proven communication skills with the ability to gain broad support and buy-in for initiatives from key stakeholders.

Preferred: 8 years of relevant experience and a BA/BS degree.