Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Accomplishments
Additional Information
Software
Timeline
Generic

Brian Lipkins-Scott

Supply Chain Planning
Long Beach,CA

Summary

Experienced planner & leader who has worked for large international organizations, as well as mid-size domestic companies across beauty, food, beverage, toys, and consumer electronics. Heavily involved in impacting North American businesses, in addition to supporting global teams with astute analytical skills. A passionate team player who wants to make an impact within the organization, while increasing their knowledge base, and continuing to grow as leader.

Overview

12
12
years of professional experience
5
5
years of post-secondary education

Work History

Director of Inventory Planning

MerchSource, LLC
Irvine, CA
11.2021 - Current
  • Selected and implemented demand planning software to support a $520M business with rapid growth expectations
  • Design, execute and lead the S&OP process to support a growing a business and improve cross-functional communication resulting in improved forecast accuracy, fill rate, align on forecast drives, highlight risks & opportunities, create action plans to address the risks & opportunities, and recommend decisions to the executive team
  • Building a demand planning team and trained new staff on job duties, company policies, and planning procedures for rapid onboarding
  • Lead a team accountable for 3,000 SKUs across 5 distribution centers to support all distribution channels
  • Continually refine systems & methods to consistently improve consensus forecasts resulting in better financial forecasts & anticipation of customer needs, improved fill rate during peak season, and supply chain efficiencies
  • Improve relationships amongst internal and external stakeholders which lead to effective knowledge sharing and optimal consensus forecasts to guide the company’s directives
  • Closely coordinate and communicate customer action plans with supply planning ensuring inventory availability and mitigation for any concerns
  • Recommended adjustments for operational and strategic forecasts impacting long term goals for the business and minimize potential excess
  • Collaborated with Asia manufacturing and supply chain partners regarding strategies to support unconstrained forecasts and capitalize on short term business opportunities

Senior Manager of Supply Chain Operations

Unilever – REN Skincare
El Segundo, CA
02.2020 - 10.2021
  • Oversaw demand planning, purchasing, and logistics by channel by account for 180 SKUs for North America, ensuring best practices and tools are being used to support the business
  • Supervised 4 team members tasked with handling materials management, planning, purchasing, and customer service duties
  • Lead the S&OP Meetings for the North America Sales Channels, resulting in cross- functional alignment and risk mitigation plans for growth initiatives, new product launches, line extensions, and promotions to meet financial goals
  • Ownership of the tracking/reporting of sales in month vs Target and flagging any risks to central Finance team, while presenting opportunities to mitigate the risk
  • Communicate and manage OOS proactively, ensuring re-order dates and turnover impact minimized
  • Main point of contact for customers, vendors, carriers and warehouse partners with responsibility to provide support and guidance on supply chain related issues in market
  • Also, accountable for driving responsiveness and cost optimization of all inbound and outbound logistics for our market
  • Managed the setting & maintenance of safety stock levels at for the North America DCs, safeguarding against OOS risks, and helping reaching sales goals
  • Responsible for proactively reporting the slow moving and obsolete inventory risk, creating plans to alleviate risk where it exists that can be actioned fast, resulting in a lower inventory provision
  • Ownership of the monthly reporting the supply chain & business KPIs for North America (forecast accuracy, bias, product availability, inventory value)

Senior Manager of National Sales Operations

Unilever – Murad, LLC
El Segundo, CA
11.2018 - 02.2020
  • Management of nearly 40% shipments for the total company business o Ownership of net shipments, ensuring open to buy is allocated efficiently and quotas to achieve monthly, quarterly and annual sales objectives are met
  • Responsible for accurately forecasting monthly net shipment and return estimates on an account level, resulting in reliable projections for the finance team for the fiscal year
  • Accountable for providing the appropriate analytics, key communication and launch strategy for new initiatives and account level projections, translating in successful new product launches each worth $2M to the organization
  • Manage the tracking of new products, holiday & key item sales results and make recommendations regarding inventory to senior management to ensure optimum sell- through, resulting in lower inventory liability
  • Collaborate with Demand Planning on core and innovation forecasts to integrate sales goals with planning requirements, ensuring adequate inventory is available to support the business
  • Accountable for driving the reduction of Return Liabilities by 14% and Account Chargebacks by 20%, contributing to higher turnover and profit margin
  • Maintain strong collaboration with cross functional teams such as supply chain, order management, finance and global marketing, IT, Warehouse Team, Account Payables, Education team, and Field Sales team, working towards more effective cross functional communication, dependable strategies with clear responsibilities and alignment
  • Ensure each account meets their desired in stock target of 95%, resulting in improved sell through rates and less out of stocks
  • Allocated resources to planned programs according to business objectives

Sales & Operations Planning Manager

Chicken of the Sea International
El Segundo, CA
08.2017 - 11.2018
  • Drive the entire demand planning process for the monthly business reviews with the executive leadership team, resulting in consensus for company objectives over the next 18 months
  • Responsible for the development, design, and delivery of the Sales and Operations Planning process, utilizing vast & various types of data to facilitate effective decision- making processes for $400+ Million-dollar business
  • Manage and lead a team of Requirements Planners for over 300 imported and domestically produced products
  • Integrate financial and operational plans, identify and resolve any discrepancies, and link high level strategic plans with near term operational plans
  • Identify short and medium-term business risks through the identification and analysis of forecast, inventory and procurement data
  • Facilitate cross-functional communication between different business units and supply chain in support of S&OP initiatives, new product launches, line extensions, promotions, discontinuations, and process improvement projects, working towards company alignment
  • Engaged with customers to effectively build rapport and lasting relationships

Demand Planning Manager

L’Oreal – NYX Cosmetics
El Segundo, CA
11.2015 - 08.2017
  • Develop and manage forecasts at SKU and family level to achieve forecast accuracy objectives for the top NYX product assortment – managed 40% of the business, encompassing 1,200 SKUs improving monthly accuracy by 16%
  • Prepared and led monthly collaboration meetings by distribution channel with Sales, Marketing and Finance, resulting in a consensus forecast for the next 12 months and/or provide reconciliation analysis of any variances
  • Train new team members on the Logility planning system and demand planning processes, while encouraging working cross-functionally in an effort to continuously improve forecast accuracy
  • Analyze historical sales trends, and researched demand drivers to determine risks & opportunities by utilizing Invoice, Marketing, POS and inventory data
  • Responsible for planning of new launches for all categories, contributing to over $20M in projected new business, including allocations and potential cannibalization of current SKU’s
  • Ensure consistency of forecast assumptions across customer base, including targeted strategic customers, base business trends, merchandising promotional plans, launch sizing, planogram changes and seasonal volume
  • Accountable for Excess & Obsolete Reporting, as well as leading cross-functional meetings to take actions on these SKUs

Demand/Supply Planner

Sabra Dipping Company, LLC, Hummus and Guacamole
White Plains, NY
04.2013 - 09.2015
  • Design and generate weekly and monthly statistical forecast reports across the Sabra portfolio (Hummus, Salsa, Guacamole, Red Salads and Yogurt Dips) for US Retail, Foodservice, and all Canadian customers for 200+ SKUs shipping from 4 Locations, contributing to $495M in sales o Reports are given to Procurement and the Plants for production
  • Manage the production planning and vendor relationship for the rapidly growing Guacamole business projecting to reach $26M in sales in 2015
  • Conduct current and future forecasting analysis, ensuring reliable forecasting processes resulting in forecast accuracy of 80% at the category level for Hummus, Salsa, Guacamole and Yogurt Dips
  • Reduced finished goods waste by 33% for the Yogurt Dips Category
  • Established inventory targets, stock level, and risk mitigation targets and managed flexibility strategy to optimize inventory
  • Lead forecast and inventory planning meetings with Cross-functional Managers, reviewing promotion volume, innovation, current item forecast and inventory targets based on changes in demand and market trends, aiding in maintaining a customer service level of 98% for Hummus and Guacamole

Demand Planner

Unilever
Englewood Cliffs, NJ
01.2011 - 04.2013
  • Manage the sales demand planning impact through the planning horizon by continuous review and assessment of the demand management forecast bias
  • Responsible for bottom up planning of a portfolio of 120 + SKUS in 6 DCs for all customers, contributing to over $420M in sales
  • Develop, modify, and communicate the short and long-range demand plan to Supply Planning
  • Actively work with Supply Planning, Brand Building/Development, Customer
  • Development, and Customer Supply Chain teams to proactively take actions that deliver desired business results
  • Lead demand reviews with cross-functional teams, gaining necessary forecast insights
  • Managed the potential write-offs of the Lipton Re-branding Initiative, working towards no impact to the write-off budget
  • Maintained a 98.4% customer service level vs 98% target
  • Chosen to be a “Demand Planning Super User” for the Refreshments team in the second wave of implementation of the new SAP APO planning system

Education

Bachelor of Business Administration - Supply Chain Management

HOWARD UNIVERSITY
08.2006 - 05.2010

MBA - Data Analytics

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY, CORPUS CHRISTI
Corpus Christi, TX
05.2023 - 12.2024

Skills

Adept using Microsoft Excel

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Accomplishments

  • Successfully launched several S&OP Processes
  • Implemented three supply chain planning systems/software
  • Member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc
  • Skilled user in Logility Planning Software
  • Skilled user in Oracle Cloud Planning
  • Skilled user in Oracle Business Intelligence and Demantra Planning Modules
  • Skilled user in SAP APO-Demand Planning Module
  • Skilled user in Blue Ridge Planning Software

Additional Information

Director of Membership for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. - Iota Zeta Lambda Chapter

Software

Oracle Cloud

SAP APO

Logility

Blue Ridge

SPS Analytics Plus

Timeline

MBA - Data Analytics

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY, CORPUS CHRISTI
05.2023 - 12.2024

Director of Inventory Planning

MerchSource, LLC
11.2021 - Current

Senior Manager of Supply Chain Operations

Unilever – REN Skincare
02.2020 - 10.2021

Senior Manager of National Sales Operations

Unilever – Murad, LLC
11.2018 - 02.2020

Sales & Operations Planning Manager

Chicken of the Sea International
08.2017 - 11.2018

Demand Planning Manager

L’Oreal – NYX Cosmetics
11.2015 - 08.2017

Demand/Supply Planner

Sabra Dipping Company, LLC, Hummus and Guacamole
04.2013 - 09.2015

Demand Planner

Unilever
01.2011 - 04.2013

Bachelor of Business Administration - Supply Chain Management

HOWARD UNIVERSITY
08.2006 - 05.2010

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