This role is for a portfolio

Category - Planning Head - D2C Consumer Brand

The role:

The Category - Planning Head will own what the brand sells, how much of it it makes, and where it sells it. The role connects consumer insight, product, supply chain and sales into one plan that drives growth with healthy margins and lean inventory.

You will run the categories as a business, owning their revenue, margin and inventory health, and lead demand and supply planning across all channels.

- Location: Bengaluru

- Reports to: Founder

- Team: Category managers, demand and supply planners, merchandising analysts

Key responsibilities:

Category strategy and P&L:

- Own category P&Ls: revenue, gross margin, sell-through and inventory health

- Define the category roadmap: which categories to deepen, enter or exit, based on consumer insight and market data

- Shape the assortment and price architecture, from hero SKUs to the long tail, by channel

- Partner with product and brand teams on new launches, from opportunity sizing to go-to-market

Demand planning:

- Build SKU-level demand forecasts across D2C, marketplaces, quick commerce and offline

- Plan for seasonality, sales events, promotions and launches with marketing and sales

- Track forecast accuracy and keep improving it

Supply and inventory planning:

- Turn demand plans into production and procurement plans with sourcing and manufacturing partners

- Optimise inventory across warehouses and dark stores: days of cover, fill rates and stock availability

- Cut aged, slow-moving and dead stock through liquidation and replenishment discipline

- Run a monthly sales and operations planning (S&OP) process that aligns category, finance, marketing and supply chain

Team and systems:

- Build and lead a strong team of category managers and planners

- Bring in the right planning tools, dashboards and automation as the business scales

What we're looking for:

- 8 - 12 years of experience, with at least 4 - 5 years leading category management, merchandising or demand and supply planning

- Must have worked with either of these (mckinsey, bain or BCG) in strategy consulting with a solid track record.

- A strong background in consumer brands: D2C, e-commerce, quick commerce, FMCG or retail

- A proven record of owning a category P&L and growing revenue while improving margins and inventory health

- Hands-on experience in SKU-level forecasting and multi-channel inventory planning

- Strong analytical skills, comfortable with data, models and planning tools, and able to turn insight into clear decisions

- Experience running an S&OP process and working across product, marketing, finance and supply chain

- A builder's mindset, comfortable in a fast-moving, founder-led environment

- MBA from a reputed institute preferred

Nice to have:

- Experience scaling a brand across e-commerce and offline retail

- Exposure to launching new categories or private-label ranges

- Familiarity with planning tools and ERPs, and setting up planning processes from scratch

- Earlier experience in consulting or a large FMCG company