Demand Planning Manager (FTC) in London

Love to work at Lily’s Kitchen? What we’re after:

Demand Planning Manager 12 Month Secondment (or potentially Senior Demand Planner dependent on experience level and suitability of the candidate)

Reporting Line Manager: Supply Chain Director

Lily’s Headquarters: Goodge Street, Fitzrovia (with hybrid working between the office and working from home)

Equality and Inclusiveness at Lily’s Kitchen: At Lily’s Kitchen, we want to build and maintain a values-driven culture of trust and inclusion, one that empowers people safely and comfortably to express every characteristic of their personal identity and experience. We’re committed to supporting and encouraging a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Your role at Lily’s Kitchen: You will be part of the Supply Chain team and be responsible for the Demand Planning processes. You will play a key role between commercial and operations and work collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders to deliver accurate business forecasts and ensure strong availability of our products.

How will I make a difference? You will:

• Be responsible for the end-to-end Demand Planning process for the business, ensuring robust, insight-driven forecasts that support commercial and operational decision-making.
• Lead, coach, and develop the Demand Planning team to enhance capability, process excellence, and forecasting accuracy.
• Drive alignment between Sales, Marketing, NPD, Supply, and Finance in the monthly S&OP cycle as well as Innovation Gate Process.
• Ensure alignment between commercial aspirations with operational constraints.
• Constructively challenge business assumptions, behaviours, and risks to deliver a balanced, consensus-driven forecast that supports growth and profitability.
• Oversee SKU and customer-level forecasting ensuring accuracy, minimising bias.
• Champion continuous improvement of the Demand Planning process, introducing automation, simplification, and standardisation where appropriate.
• Work closely with Supply Planning and Customer Supply to ensure strong availability, optimised inventory levels, and excellent service (OTIF).
• Support Commercial Finance as part of the business cash up process.
• Take into consideration our social and environmental goals within every aspect of the role.

How will I contribute? You will have:

• Demand planning experience, with a proven track record of leading or mentoring planning teams or owning a demand planning area within FMCG or a similar environment.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence, challenge constructively, and drive cross-functional alignment.
• Advanced analytical capability, with expert-level Excel skills (including Power Query, Power Pivot, and complex data modelling).
• Highly proficient in working with large datasets, extracting meaningful insights, and translating them into clear, concise recommendations.
• Strong commercial acumen, with a deep understanding of demand drivers, category dynamics, retailer behaviour, and promotional forecasting.
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced environment and able to adapt quickly to the changing priorities of a growing business.
• Proven track record of delivering process improvements, systems enhancements, and forecasting methodology developments that drive measurable business value.
• Ability to simplify complexity, create clarity, and build scalable planning processes suitable for a high-growth business.
• A collaborative and proactive approach, with the confidence to challenge the status quo and drive continuous improvement.
• A real passion for pets.

Our Perks: At Lily’s Kitchen we believe that everyone should enjoy their time at work. We reward the care our people put into their job, by caring for them in return. Our benefits are designed to make our people smile, save for the future, stay healthy and give back where they can.

Lily’s Kitchen Story: At Lily’s Kitchen we are pet food pioneers. We are changing the game with our mission to provide proper food for cats and dogs all over the world.