Senior Sport Planner

This role joins the Global Football (Soccer) team and develops Apparel demand forecasts used by Merchandising, Finance, Sourcing and Supply Planning teams to drive critical business processes and decisions. It partners with Product, Merchandising and Planning to plan highly visible Global Football Licensed, Clubs and Federations programmes with a consumer-first approach. The role involves building data-driven analysis, triangulating retail metrics, assessing marketplace risk and opportunity and collaborating across a matrix of global and geography partners.

• Develop Apparel demand forecasts used by Merchandising, Finance, Sourcing and Supply Planning teams to drive critical business processes and decisions.
• Partner with Product, Merchandising and Planning functional partners to keep the consumer first while planning critical, highly visible Global Football Licensed, Clubs and Federations programmes.
• Build hypothesis-driven and data-driven analysis, translating insights into action through problem solving and critical thinking.
• Triangulate retail metric-driven insights with Product and Merchandising teams to make decisions on assortments and retail sales plans grounded in profitability and a keen consumer focus.
• Assess future risk and opportunity in the marketplace and communicate with cross-functional partners to enable informed decisions.
• Collaborate with geography Merch, Marketplace and Planning teams to understand individual geography marketplaces and use those insights to shape future demand.
• Navigate the internal "Matrix" of partners and collaboratively make fact-based decisions advised by collective expertise, strategic business priorities, stakeholder input and data-driven metrics.
• Participate in a team structure that facilitates and improves individual and team performance.

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Logistics or a related field; any suitable combination of education, experience or training will be accepted.
• A minimum of 3 years directly relevant work experience.
• Industry planning experience.
• Experience managing and understanding retail concepts such as open to buy, gross margin, seasonal trending, inventory turn and SKU efficiency.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, results-oriented environment.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, including meeting facilitation and presentations.
• Elevated storytelling and communication capabilities, with the ability to pivot from numbers into action-oriented insights.
• Ability to build strong working relationships with cross-functional and consumer team partners.
• Strong influencing skills, including experience collaborating with virtual teams.
• Sound judgment to elevate strategic concerns to senior management in a timely and appropriate manner.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Detail-oriented and self-motivated, with strong organisational skills and multi-tasking ability.
• High level of proficiency with MS Office, including Microsoft Word and advanced Excel skills such as complex formulas, pivot tables and macros.
• Self-starter who is curious and able to work both collaboratively and independently.

• Experience with SAP/APO, O9, SSAS reporting, Cognos or DataBricks.
• Experience in a licensed, wholesale apparel, footwear or equipment organisation.