Global Planning Excellence Lead

Join the team behind iconic brands like Huggies, Kleenex, Andrex, Scott, Kotex, Poise, and Kimberly-Clark Professional. At Kimberly-Clark, it’s all here for you—innovation, growth, and the chance to make a real impact.

You were made to create Better Care for a Better World: as a person, you’re a problem-solver – a connector – someone who thrives on creating order from complexity and driving continuous improvement. You see the big picture while mastering the details, ensuring that every product, process, and partnership flows with precision and purpose. You live your life in alignment with the highest values of integrity, efficiency, and collaboration, always working to turn today’s challenges into tomorrow’s success stories. In this role, you’ll help us deliver better care for billions of people around the world.

This role will be part of Kimberly Clark's International Family Care and Professional (IFP) business—an organization rooted in purpose and innovation that has built a legacy with global impact. As Kimberly-Clark forms a strategic partnership with Suzano to create a world-class international tissue and professional products company, this role is proposed to transfer to the new venture once the transaction closes, anticipated in mid-2026, subject to consultation and other applicable legal requirements. This is a rare opportunity to help shape a new global leader backed by two industry powerhouses. You’ll be part of a high-potential business that combines Kimberly-Clark’s iconic brands and commercial excellence with Suzano’s industrial and sustainability leadership.

In one of our Supply Chain roles, you’ll focus on winning with consumers and the market, while putting safety, mutual respect, and human dignity at the center. As Global Planning Excellence Team Leader, you will lead the governance and continuous enhancement of global demand and supply planning processes, metrics, systems, S&OP process and organisational capabilities through system optimisation, analytical support and process improvement.

This is not a behind-the-scenes role. You will be the primary strategic leader for demand and supply planning processes and system enablement, partnering with and influencing senior executives, operational planning leaders and teams, IT, and external vendors across multiple business units and geographies. You will also lead the Planning Centre of Excellence team, driving system optimization, global best practices, capability building, and performance improvement. In this role, you will fundamentally transform how demand and supply planning are executed worldwide—elevating performance, consistency, and results.

This role will be responsible for but not limited to:

• Own and lead global demand and supply planning processes and systems, acting as the global process owner and primary authority across forecasting, supply planning, production scheduling, raw material planning, deployment planning, and S&OP. Ensure all processes are aligned with business unit strategies, wider supply chain objectives, and customer requirements.
• Drive system and process optimisation, providing thought leadership on demand and supply planning tools and methodologies. Partner closely with IT and external vendors to implement, enhance, and continuously improve planning systems that are scalable, future‐ready, and fit for purpose.
• Own the global Sales & Operations Planning process, supporting business units to achieve and sustain gold‐standard S&OP maturity. Ensure strong cross‐functional integration, robust governance, and effective decision‐making to balance demand, supply, cost, cash, and service.
• Define, oversee, and communicate key performance indicators for demand and supply planning and S&OP. Drive measurable improvements in forecast accuracy, service levels, inventory performance, cost to serve, and overall supply chain effectiveness. Work closely with the Analytics team to turn data into strategy, developing performance frameworks that convert raw data into actionable insights. Enable smarter, faster decision‐making that directly improves cost, cash, service, and operational performance.
• Build organisational capability through training and enablement, designing and deploying capability roadmaps, playbooks, standards, and best practices with a strong continuous improvement mindset. Oversee master‐level training, upskilling programs, and system adoption initiatives across regions. Conduct system usage and process effectiveness insights, identifying gaps in adoption, data quality, and execution discipline, and driving targeted actions to improve planning performance and maturity.
• Lead cross‐functional and cross‐geography transformation initiatives, acting as a visible change leader to modernise planning ways of working and embed consistent, high‐performing global processes and systems.

To succeed in this role, you will need the following qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, mathematics, economics, statistics, engineering, computer software, or a related field.
• 10+ years of proven success in demand and supply planning, with expertise in commercially available ERPs and forecasting systems, team leadership and ideally also previous experience of leading S&OP processes globally.
• Experience of implementing new technologies/systems, strong knowledge of statistical modelling, planning optimisation and troubleshooting within demand and supply planning platforms.
• Experience with deploying large-scale planning processes, or tools. Knowledge of Six Sigma, Lean and other continuous improvement methodologies and experience of project management.
• Ability to apply complex mathematical and statistical techniques to improve demand and supply plan accuracy and performance.
• Strong experience of direct people management within supply chain as well as a knack for leading cross-functional teams, influencing stakeholders, and driving collective success, transformation and change management programs.
• Proactive problem-solver with a strategic mindset, exceptional communication skills, and a collaborative approach. Exceptional ability to engage, persuade, and align teams across all levels of the organisation.

We believe that our employees are our greatest asset, and we're committed to providing them with the resources they need to be successful. If you're looking for a rewarding career with a company that cares about its employees, then Kimberly-Clark is the place for you.

We believe great work happens when people come together with purpose. That’s why we offer a flexible work model that blends remote work with intentional in-person collaboration — helping you connect, grow, and innovate while maintaining the balance you value.

For Kimberly-Clark to grow and prosper, we must be an inclusive organization that applies the diverse experiences and passions of its team members to brands that make life better for people all around the world, which is why we seek to build a workforce that encompasses the experiences of our consumers. When you bring your original thinking to Kimberly-Clark, you fuel the continued success of our enterprise. We are a committed equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, pregnancy, genetic information, citizenship status, or any other characteristic protected by law.