Capability Lead – Planning & Inventory Management

The Capability Lead – Planning & Inventory Management plays a critical role in shaping how Target plans demand, positions inventory, and executes flow across the enterprise.

This role is accountable for building and evolving enterprise planning and inventory capabilities by tightly integrating demand intelligence, inventory strategy, and operational execution.

Core Responsibilities

• Owns enterprise level inventory management & demand forecasting capabilities, not just functional execution
• Operates independently with broad decision authority and high judgment
• Influences outcomes across PIM, Supply Chain, Finance, and Merch without direct people leadership
• Shapes standards, frameworks, and operating models that scale across multiple businesses
• Drives clarity and alignment in executive and IBP forums through fact-based narratives
• Balances near-term execution realities with long-term capability and system health

Enterprise Demand Forecasting & Planning Strategy

• Shape the strategic direction of short- and long-term demand forecasts by synthesizing algorithmic model outputs, historical performance, trend indicators, and business context.
• Partner closely with Data Science to refine forecasting models, validate assumptions, and improve accuracy across stable, seasonal, promotional, transition, and fast-cycle categories.
• Ensure demand strategies translate into executable receipt, flow, and inventory plans aligned to financial targets and network realities.
• Influence forecasting standards, inputs, and operating rhythms that improve enterprise-level consistency and decision quality.

Guest, Trend & Market Signal Integration

• Integrate guest behavior, digital and store signals, competitive dynamics, fashion and trend insights, macroeconomic inputs, weather impacts, and price/promo effects into demand and inventory plans.
• Translate complex signals into clear, actionable guidance for Merch Planning, Inventory Management, and Merchant partners.
• Anticipate demand inflections, lifecycle shifts, and trend acceleration/slowdown to proactively reposition inventory and adjust flow strategies.

Inventory Management Strategy & Flow Enablement

• Lead enterprise inventory management capability across receipt planning, flow phasing, weeks of supply (WOS), and inventory health metrics.
• Guide inventory strategies that balance availability, freshness, speed to market, and risk mitigation across discretionary, fast-fashion, and frequency businesses.
• Partner with Inventory Operations and Supply Chain to align planning intent with execution constraints, including lead times, capacity, network flow paths, and vendor performance.
• Drive standardized inventory frameworks, tools, and best practices that improve responsiveness, scalability, and inventory productivity.

Planning & Inventory Synchronization

• Act as the integrator between demand forecasting, Merch Planning, and Inventory Management to ensure a single, aligned enterprise view of demand, receipts, flow, and inventory investment.
• Resolve systemic disconnects between planning and inventory execution by improving handoffs, decision forums, and operating cadences.
• Strengthen linkages between forecast changes and downstream impacts on receipts, flow timing, inventory health, capacity, and financial outcomes.

Enterprise Alignment & Demand / Inventory Consensus

• Influence cross-functional partners,including Merch Planning, Inventory Management, Supply Chain, Finance, and Analytics,around a unified demand and inventory outlook.
• Shape compelling strategic narratives that reconcile algorithmic forecasts, merchant intent, inventory constraints, and operational tradeoffs.
• Serve as a trusted advisor in resolving demand vs. inventory tensions and prioritizing outcomes that are right for the guest and the enterprise.

Integrated Business Planning (IBP) Leadership

• Represent planning and inventory strategy in IBP forums by clearly framing demand and inventory risks, opportunities, and scenarios.
• Connect forecast and trend shifts to implications on receipts, flow sequencing, inventory investment, and capacity requirements.
• Guide senior leaders toward informed, trade-off-based decisions that balance growth, margin, inventory productivity, and service.

Advanced Demand Sensing & Inventory Analytics Partnership

• Partner with Data Science and Analytics teams to evolve demand sensing and inventory optimization capabilities.
• Incorporate early performance signals, short-lifecycle indicators, trend shifts, weather, and promotional response into planning and inventory decisions.
• Influence enhancements to planning and inventory decision-support tools, inputs, and analytical frameworks.

Forecast, Inventory Performance & Capability Leadership

• Lead forecast accuracy, inventory health, and flow performance reviews across Promo, Seasonal, New Item, Transition, and Frequency categories.
• Diagnose root causes, identify systemic gaps, and drive improvement plans in partnership with Planning and Inventory teams.
• Establish enterprise benchmarks, metrics, and operating norms that elevate performance.
• Build durable planning and inventory capability through frameworks, playbooks, documentation, and hands-on coaching.

Qualifications Required:

• Minimum 10+ years of overall experience, including 8+ years in Demand Planning, Assortment Planning, Supply Planning, Inventory Management, Merchandise Planning, or related Planning functions, with deep expertise in retail planning processes and business operations.
• Experience working with enterprise planning platforms such as o9 Solutions, Blue Yonder (JDA), SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP), Kinaxis, Oracle Demand Planning, or similar planning solutions.
• Proven experience in fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, innovation, and continuous learning.
• Deep expertise in enterprise planning methodologies, demand forecasting, assortment planning, inventory optimization, planning governance, and performance enablement.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-functional initiatives through strong project management, stakeholder engagement, communication, and influencing skills to deliver strategic business outcomes.
• Strong strategic thinking and business acumen, with the ability to lead through ambiguity, drive organizational change, and accelerate the adoption of planning capabilities and new ways of working.