About the Role The primary objective of the Planning Manager will be to develop Brand plans and oversee the trading and performance, with a focus on ensuring the appropriate range mix and optimum buy quantity alongside optimising inventory to drive sales and profit.

Key Responsibilities Develop and present to General Manager the merchandise & inventory strategy by season, focusing on lessons learnt – Building options plans, devising pricing strategy, category mixes, intake margin strategy based on ranging blend & GP strategy through effective promotional planning.

Implement a trading calendar that captures market key trading periods such as key events and holidays, ensure that we have effective product strategies that capture market share and ensure mitigation of distressed activity.

Collaborate with FP & A team through effective budgeting and forecasting to group timelines, working collaboratively on promotional analysis to understand how to leverage group vs brand.

Develop and manage financial plans (categories and essential lines) together with buying manager, analysing their performance and forecast sales potential. Consistently looking for growth and improvement to sales productivity.

Own brand milestone calendar and be a custodian to timing, ensure collaboration with senior leadership team to ‘’own’’ their section of the milestone.

Implement buying triangle strategy to manage lifecycle of product and placement of the right volume of OTB into the right width of range – Constantly seek feedback and challenge the status quo

Implement ranging strategy that maximises the store footprint,



looking at department/gender/category and option plans to instil a learning culture of growth through trial.

Fully accountable for the brand OTB, in stock of core and essentials, right levels of freshness to drive sales chance, ensuring an adequate portion of spend is allocated to ensure we are always learning through trialling and being agile.

Trading of the brand to unlock new growth opportunities, in season trading of options and newness within categories and essentials to build future growth opportunities. Collaborations across digital and stores to ensure that we have a seamless customer experience – Implement in collaboration with digital trading calendar and ensure thorough understanding of execution online to achieve required results.

Manage stock levels and implement markdown/discounting activities which maximise our exit position (GP%) to determine seasonal buying and aide marketing activities.

Achieve critical financial targets such as Sales, Profit, Stock days and Sell through whilst being entrepreneurial & collaborative cross function

Lead post seasonal reviews, investment sign offs and play a huge role in other brand milestone meetings to drive the right outputs against strategy.

Replenishment/Inventory management – balance between stores and warehouse in line with sales plan





Store grading strategy

Be the key lead/champion on Planning Projects, continuously looking to improve efficiencies within the teams and business

Own brand reporting and trade commentary across the group in collaboration with senior leadership team

Delivery of new business initiatives in a positive and efficient manner

Act as a key member of the brand senior leadership team with ownership of commercial outputs in absence of general manager.

Work closely and business partnering with Buying/Design/Marketing/VM & Retail Operations

Manage, coach and develop Planning functions and teams with development & succession plans in place

Leadership and team management – motivates and coaches’ team to achieve goals through effective and consistent performance management conversations

Maintain effective relationships with Key stakeholders within Retail Brand divisions i.e. Finance, retail, product and eCommerce teams

Work with retail & digital teams to drive increased margin productivity per sqm & also ROAS for digital per EDM/digital comms.

Experience Senior planning professional with top tier Australian retailer (or FMCG) experience

Executive leadership

Experience of managing a team upwards of 3 direct reports

Great track record of coaching and development & knows how to get the best out or the team

Takes a strategic and customer orientated perspective to the business

Continuous improvement focuses and ability to identify new opportunities

Highly developed numerical skills, including accuracy and interpretation.

Great at collaboration

Growth mindset

📌 Planning Manager - Sportscraft (Mascot)
🏢 Apg
📍 Mascot