Planning Manager, NA

DLF North America is currently recruiting for a Planning Manager, NA for our operations located in Albany, Oregon.

DLF Group is the world leader in the development and sale of high-quality grass seeds for the agricultural forage and (professional) lawn markets. By continuously developing new innovative varieties and products, and with a strong focus on quality and reliability, DLF Group offers demonstrable value to the business of their customers and other relationships.

DLF North America SBU is one of our four Strategic Business Units. DLF employees are characterized by a high level of competency, passion, and commitment. In everything we do we act with respect, trust and integrity.

Come grow with DLF! Check us out  (Global) &  (USA) &  (CA) & visit our careers page at

The North America Planning Manager is responsible for leading and integrating all planning functions across the United States and Canada, including Demand Planning, Supply Planning, and Inventory Planning. The role establishes and leads the North America Planning Team, ensuring demand, production capacity, and inventory plans are aligned to meet customer service commitments while optimizing network resources and working capital performance.

This position provides end-to-end ownership of planning governance across North America, ensuring structured, data-driven decision-making through the S&OP and S&OE cycles. The role drives standardization of planning processes across sites, strengthens cross-functional collaboration, and prepares the organization for scalable digital planning transformation.

The North America Planning Manager drives regional planning excellence by overseeing demand and supply integration, improving forecast accuracy, and ensuring production and inventory plans are executable and aligned with business priorities. The role develops and manages a high-performing planning team, establishes clear governance frameworks, and delivers actionable insights to support executive decision-making.

This position plays a key leadership role in strengthening North America’s end-to-end supply chain maturity, ensuring planning processes are standardized, scalable, and ready for future system and digital planning enhancements.

• Establish and lead the North America Planning Team across US and Canada.
• Provide leadership, coaching, and development to Supply Planners, Demand Planners, and Inventory Planning functions.
• Define clear roles, responsibilities, and governance structures across planning disciplines.
• Build a high-performing, data-driven planning culture aligned with North America and global supply chain strategy.
• Ensure alignment of planning practices across regions and sites.

• Oversee the development and maintenance of accurate demand forecasts across North America.
• Ensure demand planning processes are standardized, collaborative, and data-informed.
• Monitor forecast accuracy and bias; drive root cause analysis and corrective actions.
• Facilitate the Demand Review process within S&OP and S&OE cycles.
• Partner with Sales, Marketing, and Commercial teams to align demand assumptions with market realities.

• Oversee development of integrated production and supply plans that balance demand forecasts with plant capacity, labor, materials, and logistics constraints.
• Ensure supply plans support service-level targets and financial objectives.
• Lead the Supply Review within the S&OP and S&OE cycles.
• Manage cross-site and cross-regional optimization of capacity and inventory.
• Provide escalation and decision support for supply risks and constraint management.

• Define and monitor North America inventory strategy, including safety stock policies, coverage targets, and segmentation approaches.
• Drive improvements in inventory turns, ageing, and working capital performance.
• Oversee inventory health reporting and corrective action planning.
• Ensure alignment between planning assumptions and inventory governance standards.

• Own and lead the North America S&OP and S&OE planning processes, ensuring…