Demand Operations Lead (DOL) - Nutrition

Role overview

Unilever is hiring a Demand Operations Lead for its Nutrition business. The position sits within the Supply Chain function, reports to the Sales & Operations Planning Lead, and supports the Southern Africa scope from La Lucia, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This is a full-time role.

About the company

Unilever operates in more than 190 countries and touches the lives of billions of people every day through its brands. The company focuses on creating positive impact for consumers, communities, and the planet, with a strong belief that sustainable business practices drive better performance. Its culture is built around purpose, inclusion, collaboration, and flexibility, with a commitment to helping employees shape their own path.

Job purpose

The Demand Operations Lead supports the demand planning agenda by building accurate short- and long-range forecasts, coordinating promotional planning, and keeping key stakeholders aligned. The role turns commercial inputs, data, and market insights into practical demand plans, while improving forecast accuracy, lowering bias, and addressing performance gaps.

This role also partners closely with cross-functional teams to strengthen forecast execution, improve promotional effectiveness, and use planning tools and systems to generate dependable demand signals that support overall business performance.

Key responsibilities

The position covers three core areas: long-term demand planning, short-term forecast execution, and promotional planning performance.

• Create and update annual demand forecasts using sales patterns, macroeconomic insights, promotional activity, and innovation plans.
• Use AI-enabled forecasting solutions to produce baseline and promotional forecasts that support business planning.
• Work with stakeholders across functions to collect inputs, align expectations, and build strong demand plans.
• Own the quarterly demand forecast and ensure delivery against both value and volume targets.
• Continuously improve forecast accuracy and reduce forecasting bias.
• Spot performance shortfalls, define mitigation actions, and help deliver business goals.
• Partner with Customer and Planning teams to design and execute promotional forecasts.
• Assess promotional results and return on investment to identify better ways to deploy spend and improve outcomes.
• Use data-led insights to support commercial choices and demand-generation strategy.

Requirements

• 3 to 5 years of experience in broad supply chain management.
• Solid understanding of the S&OP process and planning cadence.
• Experience managing external parties.
• Comfortable working with people at all levels across a business.
• Background in FMCG.
• Strong ability to use AI-enabled planning and forecasting tools, along with data-driven systems.
• Strong analytical capability with the ability to turn data into business actions.

Leadership expectations

The successful candidate should be results-oriented, resilient, and proactive in finding better ways of working. The role calls for someone who collaborates well with others, takes ownership of their work and wellbeing, maintains high standards, and keeps the consumer at the center of decision-making. The person should be comfortable interpreting evidence and data, identifying opportunities, and turning insights into improvement.

Unilever behaviours

• Care deeply: Put consumers, people development, and environmental impact at the center, while being honest about performance and opportunities.
• Focus on what counts: Prioritize the most important work, set ambitious goals, and aim for meaningful impact.
• Stay three steps ahead: Think boldly, stay curious, anticipate consumer needs and market changes, and look for breakthroughs.
• Deliver with excellence: Work with speed and quality, take ownership, hold one another accountable, and avoid mediocrity.

Additional information

This is a full-time position based in La Lucia and scoped for Southern Africa. Unilever is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity and inclusion across age, sex, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, and belief. Hiring decisions will consider South African Employment Equity and Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment legislation. Candidates must be legally allowed to work in South Africa, and foreign nationals may need to provide supporting documentation. If you need any support or access arrangements during the hiring process, you are encouraged to share that information when applying so the team can assist you.