Executive Director, Brand Value Chain Global Business Planning La Mer

The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. is one of the world’s leading manufacturers, marketers, and sellers of quality skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products, and is a steward of luxury and prestige brands globally. The company’s products are sold in approximately 150 countries and territories under brand names including: Estée Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, M·A·C, La Mer, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin Paris, TOM FORD, Smashbox, AERIN Beauty, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, GLAMGLOW, KILIAN PARIS, Too Faced, Dr.Jart+, the DECIEM family of brands, including The Ordinary and NIOD, and BALMAIN Beauty.

## Description

The Executive Director, Global Business Planning will serve as a strategic business partner on La Mer Global Brand, leading the development of gross sales analytics and insights, Innovation forecasting and sufficiency, and integrated planning strategies that enable sustainable global growth and informed decision-making across Regions and Markets.

This role will lead the Global Business Planning function, translating data into actionable insights and recommendations for senior leadership. The Executive Director will partner closely with Global Marketing, Finance, BVC, and Regional Brand and Demand Planning teams to identify risks and opportunities, strengthen forecast accuracy, and ensure alignment between brand strategy, financial objectives, innovation plans, and demand.

A critical responsibility of the role will be leading innovation forecasting and portfolio sufficiency, overseeing the development and evolution of new product forecasts throughout the Innovation process, and establishing global forecasting principles to ensure robust, strategically aligned plans across the Global Brand and Regions.

The role will continuously evolve the Global Business Planning capability, developing new analytics, processes, tools, and ways of working that improve decision quality, organizational agility, and business performance.

Key Responsibilities

Global Business Planning & Strategic Insights

• Lead the Global Business Planning function, establishing and refining the analytical frameworks, planning processes, and business insights required to support global brand strategy and long-term growth.
• Identify and quantify business opportunities and risks across Regions, categories, franchises, channels, and products, partnering with cross-functional leaders to translate insights into action.
• Develop executive-level analyses and scenario planning to support key strategic decisions, business reviews, investment choices, and evolving Brand priorities.

Innovation & New Product Forecasting

• Lead the forecasting strategy for innovation, partnering with Global Marketing, Product Development, Finance, BVC, and Regional teams throughout the Corporate Innovation Process.
• Establish and communicate global new product forecasting principles and processes, ensuring they reflect Brand strategy, historical performance, market dynamics, and launch objectives.
• Provide strategic leadership to new product business cases, evaluating competitive benchmarks, forecast assumptions, cannibalization, net extra, and longer-term potential.
• Drive alignment with Regional Brand and Demand Planning teams on new forecast and cannibalization assumptions, ensuring forecasts appropriately reflect global launch strategies while incorporating relevant market dynamics.
• Oversee the evolution of forecasts throughout project stages, identifying material changes, challenging assumptions, and escalating risks and opportunities as appropriate.
• Ensure effective lifecycle planning by connecting new product launches with the planned phase-out of existing items and identifying implications to demand, inventory, and business performance.

## Long Description

Integrated Business Planning

• Provide leadership across the Brand's Integrated Business Planning (IBP/MBR) process, ensuring strong connectivity between demand, financial, innovation, commercial, and supply plans.
• Lead the review and reconciliation of the Demand Plan and Financial Estimate, identifying material gaps, underlying drivers, risks, and opportunities and driving cross-functional alignment on actions and accountability across Regions and Markets.
• Establish a forward-looking view of Brand demand and business performance, elevating issues requiring leadership attention and enabling earlier decision-making.
• Drive saleable and promotional demand sufficiency across Regions and Affiliates, identifying potential gaps and partnering with stakeholders to develop mitigation strategies.

Long-Range Planning & Analytics

• Lead the development of refreshable long-range sales projections at the SKU, subcategory, category, and franchise levels across saleable and promotional products.
• Develop scenarios analyses that enable leadership to understand the potential impact of changes in innovation, market performance, demand assumptions, and strategic choices.

Organizational & Functional Leadership

• Develop and implement processes, tools, and ways of working that strengthen planning discipline, improve cross-functional collaboration, and increase organizational effectiveness.
• Lead, coach, and develop the Global Business Planning team, building functional expertise, strategic thinking, analytical capabilities, and a strong talent pipeline.
• Advance the use of data, visualization, and analytical tools to increase the speed, accessibility, and effectiveness of business insights and decision support.

## Qualifications

• Exceptional business and analytical acumen with the ability to synthesize large and complex data sets into clear insights, strategic implications, and actionable recommendations for senior leadership.
• Deep understanding of demand planning and forecasting principles, with demonstrated ability to connect demand forecasts to financial plans, innovation strategies, and business objectives.
• Proven ability to influence and align senior stakeholders across functions, Regions, and Markets.
• Strong executive communication and presentation skills, with the ability to simplify complex issues and communicate a clear point of view to senior leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to anticipate business risks and opportunities, challenge assumptions constructively, and drive decisions and actions in ambiguous or rapidly changing environments.
• Systems-thinking mindset with a strong understanding of the interactions across a demand-driven supply chain and the broader end-to-end business planning ecosystem.
• Advanced proficiency in Excel and PowerPoint; experience with data visualization, analytics, and planning platforms such as Tableau, Alteryx, or comparable tools.
• Prestige beauty, luxury, consumer products, or other global consumer-facing industry experience preferred.

Pay Range:

Anticipated Base Salary Range $158,650.00 to $272,700.00 (Depending on qualifications, skills, experience and/or budget), based on a 40 hour work week (range to be scaled accordingly). In addition, The Estée Lauder Companies offers a variety of benefits to eligible employees, including health insurance coverage (medical, dental, and vision insurance), wellness and family support programs, life and disability insurance, retirement savings plans, education-related programs, paid holidays and vacation time. In addition, the Company maintains highly competitive incentive compensation programs (role eligibility may vary based on terms of the respective plan(s)).

You may be eligible to participate in the applicable Commission/Bonus Plan, under the plan guidelines in effect at the time of hire. Additional details regarding the commission plan will be provided as part of your onboarding.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We are an equal-opportunity employer. Minorities, women, veterans, and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply. Accommodations for job applicants with disabilities are available on request.

Artificial Intelligence is used to compare and screen an applicant’s resume as against the posted job description.