Director of Demand Planning

HydroJug; Ogden (UT); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

HydroJug is seeking a Demand Planning Lead to own the rolling forecast across all channels and brands, and to supervise daily inventory allocation when supply is constrained. This role coordinates with channel planners, the allocation manager, and S&OP forums to establish a single forecast number the business can plan from.

You will build the forecasting framework for new launches, maintain forecast accuracy, and drive MAPE improvements while leading a small demand planning team toward aligned,

Responsibilities

• Rolling demand forecast — all channels + all brands
• Demand review cadence into S&OP
• Forecast accuracy + bias by channel
• Daily allocation oversight
• Team leadership

Job description

You own the rolling demand forecast end-to-end — every channel, every brand, every SKU — and you own daily inventory allocation across DTC, Amazon, and wholesale when supply is constrained. Those two functions live under one roof by design. Forecast and allocation disconnected from each other are the root cause of most fill-rate misses and overstock problems. You fix that by owning both.

Today, HydroJug's demand planning function has real talent in seat — Jelena Minic as Demand Planning Lead, channel planners covering Amazon (Roopesh Athmuri), Shopify (Hassan Ali), and Acta (Ivana Majstorovic), and Laszlo Steffensen running Allocation. What it doesn't have yet is a single accountable owner who knits those people together into a forecasting and allocation machine, sets the standard for forecast accuracy, and feeds the S&OP forum the numbers it needs to make decisions.

That's you.

You are also the person who makes Purelyte forecastable before it has history. You'll be building the new-launch demand modeling framework that your team will use when a brand with no sales data needs a 12-month demand plan.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Rolling demand forecast — all channels + all brands

• 13-week rolling + 12-month horizon forecast by SKU × channel × brand (HydroJug · Acta · Purelyte)
• Owns the statistical baseline + qualitative overlay (promotional lifts, new item launches, seasonal curves, channel mix shifts)
• Forecast reconciliation across Amazon, Shopify DTC, and wholesale PO pipeline — one number the business can plan from

Demand review cadence into S&OP

• Weekly Demand Review meeting — agenda ownership, pre-reads, decision capture
• Feeds the Director of Planning & S&OP with demand‑side sign‑off for the weekly Supply Review and Monthly Executive S&OP
• Demand assumptions are locked and published before the S&OP forum; surprises in the meeting are a failure mode

Forecast accuracy + bias by channel

• Publishes forecast accuracy weekly by channel and top‑50 SKUs
• Owns the root‑cause analysis when accuracy misses target — is it statistical error, lag in POS data, bad promo assumptions, or a new‑item ramp model problem?
• Drives the team toward MAPE trending down quarter over quarter

Daily allocation oversight

• Oversees Laszlo Steffensen (Allocation Manager) and the open Allocation Specialist seat
• Sets allocation policy across channels when inventory is constrained — prioritization rules, fair‑share logic, wholesale vs. DTC trade‑offs
• Reviews exception escalations from the Allocation Manager daily; makes the calls on constrained situations above the Allocation Manager's authority level

Team leadership

• Demand Planning Lead: Jelena Minic (filled) — your planning anchor; owns statistical modeling rigor
• Channel planners: Roopesh Athmuri (Amazon), Hassan Ali (Shopify), Ivana Majstorovic (Acta), Wholesale planner (open — one of your early hires), Puressentials planner (future, timed to brand launch)
• Allocation Specialist: open (P1 hire — in process in parallel with your onboarding)
• You are accountable for the output of this team. Not just the process.

SUCCESS CRITERIA

First 30 days

• 1:1s with every direct report, with the Director of Planning & S&OP, with the VP of eCommerce (Joel McAllister), the VP of Sales (CJ), and the CFO (Aaron Davis). You understand how each team's demand signals feed into the current forecast — and where those signals break down.
• You've audited current forecast accuracy by channel. You know the MAPE on the top‑50 SKUs. You know which channels are systematically biased high or low and why.
• You've observed the current Demand Review cadence — what runs, what doesn't, what decisions slip out of the meeting.
• You have NOT proposed a structural overhaul yet. You're learning.

First 90 days

• Demand Review runs on a clean agenda that produces a locked forecast number the S&OP forum can use. Pre‑reads are out 48 hours in advance.
• Forecast accuracy baseline is published and shared. The Director of Planning & S&OP and the CFO know where the numbers stand.
• The open Wholesale Demand Planner is in seat or close to it.
• Allocation policy is documented — the rules Laszlo works from are written down and agreed to with Sales, eCommerce, and Operations.
• You've built the Purelyte's new‑item demand modeling framework — even if the brand hasn't launched, you have the scaffolding.

First 6 months

• Forecast accuracy at or trending toward ≥85% across primary channels.
• MAPE on top‑50 SKUs below 20% and declining.