Director of Demand Planning

The Director of Demand Planning is responsible for leading Black Diamond’s global demand planning process, developing accurate, actionable, and financially aligned demand forecasts across products, markets, and sales channels. This role translates market intelligence, commercial strategies, historical performance, and customer demand signals into a consolidated demand plan that drives inventory decisions, supply chain execution, and financial planning.

As a key leader in Black Diamond’s Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process, the Director will establish a disciplined, collaborative approach to forecasting that balances customer service, inventory investment, revenue growth, and operational efficiency. The role will partner closely with Sales, Marketing, Product, Finance, and Supply Planning to improve forecast quality, increase visibility to demand risks and opportunities, and enable more responsive decision-making across the global business.

The ideal candidate combines strong analytical capabilities with commercial acumen, process leadership, and the ability to influence cross-functional teams in a dynamic, seasonal, and globally integrated outdoor products business.

Key Responsibilities

Global Demand Planning & Forecasting

• Lead the development and continuous improvement of a global, integrated demand plan across wholesale, distributor, and direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels.

• Establish forecasting methodologies that incorporate historical sales, open orders, customer forecasts, point-of-sale data where available, seasonality, promotions, product launches, and market trends.

• Translate commercial strategies, customer commitments, and market intelligence into an unbiased, data-driven forecast at appropriate product, channel, geographic, and time-horizon levels.

• Develop effective approaches to forecasting new products, product transitions, seasonal assortments, and end-of-life inventory.

• Ensure demand plans reflect channel-specific demand patterns while providing a consolidated view of global demand and inventory requirements.

Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)

• Lead the demand planning component of the monthly S&OP cycle, coordinating inputs, assumptions, risks, and opportunities across commercial and operational functions.

• Facilitate cross-functional demand review meetings to align on the latest forecast, identify gaps versus budget and financial forecasts, and develop consensus on expected demand.

• Provide clear visibility into changes in demand, forecast uncertainty, upside opportunities, downside risks, and their potential financial and operational implications.

• Partner with Supply Planning to translate the demand plan into an executable supply plan, identifying capacity constraints, supply risks, inventory imbalances, and potential service issues.

• Ensure demand planning outputs support both near-term execution and longer-term strategic, capacity, and financial planning.

Forecast Accuracy & Business Performance

• Establish and maintain meaningful forecasting KPIs, including forecast accuracy, forecast bias, demand plan stability, and performance by product category, channel, geography, and time horizon.

• Develop root-cause analysis and corrective actions to address forecast error, recurring bias, and gaps between planned and actual demand.

• Improve the quality, consistency, and timeliness of planning data, assumptions, and management reporting.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Build strong working relationships with global Sales, Marketing, Product, Finance, Customer Service, and Supply Chain teams to ensure shared accountability for the demand plan.

• Partner with Sales to incorporate customer forecasts, retail sell-through trends, major account opportunities, distributor demand, and changes in order patterns.

• Collaborate with Marketing and Product teams on product launches, promotional activity, assortment changes, and lifecycle planning.

• Work with Finance to reconcile operational demand forecasts with revenue budgets, financial reforecasts, and business performance expectations.

• Communicate demand assumptions, forecast changes, and business implications clearly to stakeholders at all levels of the organization.

Systems, Data & Process Improvement

• Own the ongoing development of demand planning processes, tools, reporting, and analytical capabilities.

• Identify opportunities to improve forecasting through statistical models, demand sensing, automation, and appropriate application of advanced analytics.

• Partner with IT and system stakeholders to ensure planning systems, master data, and reporting support effective decision-making.