At The North Face we dare to lead the world forward through Exploration. We were born to Explore, Disrupt and to Lead. We were born to Love Wild Places and to Spark Curiosity. We believe that exploration is a mindset - both on the mountain and off the mountain - and it infuses everything we do. As a community of explorers, we stay curious about new ideas, places, and people.
So, before we get to the job details, take a minute to learn a little more about us – our values and our culture. If you can see yourself working side-by-side with a team of adventure-loving people, The North Face just may be the place for you.
To learn more about our values and our culture, visit The North Face Careers or www.thenorthface.com.
Head of Planning, The North Face Americas
What will you do?
As part of The North Face Americas leadership team, you will lead the Americas Planning team and will be responsible for setting and executing the end‑to‑end merchandise and inventory (demand / supply) planning strategy across all channels. This role partners closely with Merchandising, Supply Chain, Finance, Sales, Stores and E-com to drive profitable growth, optimize inventory investment, and improve demand responsiveness in a complex omnichannel environment.
The Head of Planning leads a multi‑disciplinary organization spanning Demand & Supply Planning, Allocation, Channel Planning & Buying, Inventory Management, and Planning Analytics and Marketplace management, ensuring a single, integrated view of demand, inventory, and financial outcomes across the enterprise.
What you will do:
Enterprise Planning & Strategy
- Own the end‑to‑end planning vision across footwear and apparel, aligning demand, supply, inventory, and financial plans with company growth objectives.
- Translate corporate and channel strategies into 5 year long range plans, annual and seasonal plans covering sales, margin, and inventory x channel and country within region.
- Own the quality and integrity of the Americas business plan, proactively identifying gaps to sales, margin, and inventory targets and driving cross-functional actions to close them.
- Establish a clear omnichannel planning framework that balances digital, wholesale, and brick‑and‑mortar needs while optimizing total enterprise outcomes.
- Lead scenario planning and risk mitigation for demand volatility, supply constraints, and channel shifts.
Demand, Supply & Inventory Leadership
- Oversee demand forecasting and supply planning, ensuring accuracy, transparency, and alignment across channels.
- Set inventory targets and guardrails to support availability, service levels, and margin while minimizing excess and obsolescence.
- Drive inventory productivity through disciplined receipt flow, lifecycle management, and exit strategies.
- Partner with Supply Chain to align capacity, lead times, and deployment strategies.
Planning, Buying & Allocation
- Lead channel‑specific planning approaches for DTC/e‑commerce, wholesale, and retail, ensuring consistent financial rigor with channel‑appropriate execution.
- Oversee allocation strategy to ensure right product, right place, right time, leveraging store clusters, digital demand signals, and wholesale commitments.
- Oversee promotional cadence across DTC and ensure price parity in the marketplace.
- Partner with Merchandising and Buying to inform assortment architecture, depth, and flow decisions.
Analytics, Insights & Tools
- Own the planning analytics roadmap, ensuring clear KPIs, reporting, and insights that support both strategic and in‑season decisions.
- Elevate the use of data, advanced analytics, and planning systems to improve forecast accuracy, sco productivity, inventory turns, and margin outcomes.
- Drive continuous improvement of planning tools, processes, and ways of working.
Cross‑Functional Partnership
- Act as a key thought partner to Merchandising, Finance, Sales, Digital, and Operations leaders. Provide clear, concise insights and recommendations to executive leadership, enabling faster and better‑informed decisions. Align financial planning with execution, ensuring plans translate into operational outcomes.
People Leadership & Organizational Excellence
- Lead and develop high‑performing teams across Allocation, Inventory Planning, Channel Planning/Buying, Inventory Management, and Analytics.
- Build strong succession plans and elevate functional capability through coaching, talent development, and organizational design.
- Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
What do you need to succeed?
- We all have unique skills that we bring to work and celebrate every day. For this role, there are foundational skills you’ll need to succeed and excel. Additionally, while formal education in a related field is great to have, we are most interested in your 12+ years of progressive leadership experience in merchandise planning, buying, demand planning, or inventory management within footwear, apparel, or consumer retail. The foundational skills you will need in this position are:
- Proven leadership experience managing multi‑channel, enterprise‑scale planning teams.
- Deep expertise in demand forecasting, inventory optimization, allocation, and financial planning.
- Strong understanding of digital, wholesale, and physical retail dynamics and trade‑offs.
- Highly analytical with the ability to translate data into clear commercial actions.
- Experienced influencer with the ability to partner effectively at the executive level.Advanced planning systems knowledge; strong financial and business acumen.
- Strategic, enterprise‑minded thinker with strong commercial judgment
- Comfortable navigating ambiguity and complexity
- Results‑oriented with a bias toward actionCollaborative, transparent, and customer‑focused
- Passion for product, performance, and talent development
Success Measures
Success in this role may look like:
- Deliver profitable, sustainable growth by translating business strategy into integrated sales, margin, inventory, and demand plans across the Americas.
- Improve forecast accuracy and demand responsiveness, enabling the organization to make more informed decisions earlier and respond quickly to changes in consumer demand.Increase inventory productivity, driving healthy inventory levels, improved turns, strong full-price sell-through, and reduced excess and aged inventory.
- Optimize marketplace availability by ensuring the right product is positioned in the right channel, market, and location at the right time while balancing service levels and inventory investment.
- Strengthen planning discipline and execution, establishing clear planning processes, decision rights, KPIs, and accountability across seasonal, annual, and long-range planning.Create one integrated view of the business across DTC, Digital, Wholesale, and Retail, improving alignment between demand, supply, inventory, and financial plans.
- Elevate commercial decision-making by providing timely, forward-looking insights, scenarios, risks, and recommendations that enable leadership to make faster and better-informed decisions.Build a high-performing Planning organization, strengthening functional capabilities, developing future leaders, building succession depth, and creating a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Now WE have a question for YOU.
Hiring Range:
$203,040.00 USD - $253,800.00 USD annually
Incentive Potential: This position is eligible for additional compensation awards that may include an annual incentive plan, sales incentive, or commission potential. Specific details of the additional compensation eligibility for this position will be provided during the recruiting and interview process.
Long-Term Incentive Potential: This position is eligible to participate in a Long-Term Incentive Plan. Specific details of the plan will be provided during the recruiting and interview process.
Benefits at VF Corporation: You can review a general overview of each benefit program offered, including this year's medical plan rates on www.MyVFbenefits.com and by clicking Looking to Join VF? Detailed information on your benefits will be provided during the hiring process.
Please note, our hiring ranges are determined and built from market pay data. In determining the specific compensation for this position, we comply with all local, state, and federal laws.
At VF, we value a diverse, inclusive workforce and we provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees. All qualified applicants for employment will be considered without regard to an individual’s race, color, sex, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local laws. If you require accommodations during the application process, please contact us at peopleservices@vfc.com. VF will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals to the extent required by applicable law.
Pursuant to all applicable local Fair Chance Ordinance requirements, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, VF will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
