VP of Supply Chain Planning Greater Syracuse, NY Area

Please note that we are currently unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position. Candidates must have authorization to work in the U.S. without the need for sponsorship now or in the future.

About the role

We're looking for a leader to own demand planning and purchase order execution across a catalog of roughly 5,000 SKUs. The goal is to keep us fully in stock without being overstocked.

This is not a forecasting job that ends when the plan is published. You own the plan, the buy, and the follow-through — through vendor acknowledgement, cargo ready date, and handoff to transportation, until product lands in our buildings on the week we need it.

The role is also constrained by what our buildings can physically absorb. Door capacity and labor set a ceiling on how much product we can receive in a given week. Purchasing has to be smoothed against that ceiling, not just against demand. Chinese New Year is the clearest case: the pull-ahead is unavoidable, but the volume has to be feathered in over months. When purchasing isn't smoothed, containers sit at the port accruing demurrage.

What you'll own

Demand planning and buy plans

• Forecast demand across the full SKU base, including new items, seasonal ramps, and end-of-life
• Translate forecasts into actionable buy plans with clear coverage targets by SKU and category
• Decide how much inventory each category needs to stay in stock without carrying more than it can turn, and show the analysis behind those targets

Purchase order execution

• Place purchase orders against the plan, on the cadence the plan requires
• Smooth purchasing against weekly receiving capacity so buys land inside what our buildings can absorb
• Manage seasonal pull-ahead — Chinese New Year above all — as a months-long flow problem, not a single large buy

PO lifecycle management

• Secure timely vendor acknowledgements and hold the line on committed dates
• Validate cargo ready dates and keep them honest
• Hand off cleanly to the transportation booking team so bookings, transit, and receipt line up with need dates
• Surface exceptions early, while there's still time to act on them
• Partner closely with merchandising, transportation, and distribution center operations

Vendor management

• Own vendor performance against acknowledged dates and cargo ready commitments
• When POs slip, get on the phone. Use the weight of our business to hold vendors to what they committed to
• Build the scorecards and the escalation path that make those conversations short

The AI mandate

A lot of this function runs on manual monitoring today, and we don't believe it should. We want forecasting supported by models. We want PO placement automated wherever the rules are clear enough to encode. We want exceptions in the PO lifecycle surfaced automatically the moment they emerge, so they reach us while the date can still be recovered rather than after it has passed.

Prior AI expertise is not a requirement for this job. What you do need is technical savvy, real curiosity about these tools, and the conviction that this is how the function gets better going forward. If your instinct when you see repetitive manual work is to ask what could be automated, you'll do well here.

What you bring

We care more about how you think than whether you've held this exact title. If you're deeply analytical, can hold vendors to their commitments, and can build solutions with AI, we want to talk to you.

• Deep analytical capability — you work directly in the data, build the model yourself, and can defend the numbers rather than presenting someone else's output
• Fluency with SQL, BI tools, and advanced Excel, and the ability to pick up an ERP or planning system quickly
• Real vendor management experience — you've held suppliers or partners to commitments and know what actually moves them
• Demonstrated ability to build solutions with AI and automation, or a clear track record of teaching yourself new tools and putting them into production
• Comfort operating against hard physical or operational constraints, not just against a plan on paper

What success looks like in your first year

• In-stock rate improves while weeks of supply holds flat or comes down
• Receipts land inside weekly door and labor capacity, with peak volume feathered rather than spiked
• Vendor on-time performance to acknowledged dates improves, with a scorecard everyone recognizes
• Manual monitoring is gone wherever it can be automated, replaced by exceptions that surface on their own

Raymour & Flanigan proudly supports a drug and smoke free work environment.

Raymour & Flanigan is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer that does not discriminate against any associate or applicant on the basis of race, creed, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), age, national origin, physical or mental disability, status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual orientation, sexual and other reproductive health decisions, marital or familial status, genetic information or other basis protected by law.