Director, Planning

Position Summary

The Director, Planning Center of Excellence (CoE) is responsible for defining, governing, and continuously improving global planning processes while ensuring the consistent and effective deployment of advanced planning technologies across the enterprise. This role serves as the central authority for planning standards, best practices, and system usage—enabling scalable, repeatable, and high performing planning capabilities that support business growth, resilience, and decision quality. The Director leads the design of end to end planning frameworks (e.g., demand, supply, S&OP/S&OE, production scheduling) and ensures planning technologies such as advanced planning and finite scheduling tools are implemented and used in alignment with defined process intent. This role partners closely with regional planning teams, functional leaders, IT, and technology enablement resources to drive adoption, capability maturity, and sustained value realization.

Remote based with up to 75% travel

What You’ll do as a Director Planning

• Own and govern global planning process standards across demand, supply, S&OP/S&OE, and production scheduling.
• Define planning policies, decision rights, planning horizons, and performance expectations to ensure consistency across regions and business units.
• Lead the evolution of planning processes to align with business strategy, complexity, and growth objectives.
• Establish and maintain a formal governance model to manage process changes, deviations, and continuous improvement.
• Act as the business owner for advanced planning technologies and ensure they effectively support planning processes.
• Collaborate with IT and consulting partners to translate process requirements into standardized system designs and global templates, driving consistent global implementation with minimal customization.
• Oversee planning technology roadmaps, upgrades, and capability expansions to align with business priorities and ensure sustained value.
• Lead organization-wide change management for planning process and technology initiatives by building a global user community, fostering adoption through clear roles and training, and serving as the executive escalation point for adoption challenges.
• Establish global planning KPIs, leverage performance insights to drive improvements, and lead cross-functional efforts to streamline workflows and enhance planner effectiveness.
• Lead and develop the Planning Center of Excellence by building a high-performing team, creating talent development programs, and coaching senior leaders to enhance global planning capabilities.

The Experience, Skills, and Abilities Needed

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Operations, Engineering, Business, or related field.
• Minimum 8 years of experience in supply chain planning, operations, or S&OP, with leadership at a global or enterprise level.
• Demonstrated experience designing and governing planning processes across multiple regions or business units.
• Strong understanding of advanced planning technologies (e.g., Kinaxis, finite scheduling tools) and their role in enabling business processes.
• Proven ability to lead large scale change and drive adoption in complex, matrixed organizations.

Preferred:

• Master’s degree (MBA or equivalent).
• Experience operating within or leading a Center of Excellence model.
• Exposure to global manufacturing and multi site planning environments.
• Strong facilitation, influencing, and executive communication skills.

Other: 

• Excellent interpersonal, communication, organization, problems solving, business acumen, and time management skills.

What STERIS Offers

We value our employees and are committed to providing a comprehensive benefits package that supports your health, well-being, and financial future. 

Here is a brief overview of what we offer:

• Market competitive pay
• Extensive paid time off and (9) added holidays
• Excellent healthcare, dental, and vision benefits
• Long/short term disability coverage
• 401(K) with company match
• Maternity and parental leave
• Additional add on benefits/discounts for programs such as pet insurance
• Tuition reimbursement and continued educational programs
• Excellent opportunities for advancement in a stable long-term career 

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