Head of Commercial Planning

Why join us Joining Sainsbury's as the Head of Commercial Planning offers a unique opportunity to lead and shape major commercial processes within a renowned multi-channel retail organisation. With a focus on innovation, compliance, and commercial excellence, this role provides the chance to develop bold strategies, drive operational value, and foster a high-performing team across multiple sites. By championing supplier relationship management, leading the implementation of major commercial processes, and ensuring regulatory compliance, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of commercial operations while fostering a culture of excellence and empowerment within the team. What you'll do As the Head of Commercial Planning at Sainsbury's, you will play a key role in maximising commercial and operational value by defining bold strategies, creating best-in-class supplier relationship management processes and tools, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and supporting the ongoing Core Commercial Transformation programme. You will lead critical commercial processes across ranging and pricing, act as the business SME for supplier management tools, coordinate cross-category supplier engagement communications, and drive operational excellence in a fast-changing commercial and regulatory environment. Additionally, you will be responsible for creating and leading a high-performing team across multiple sites, fostering a culture of compliance, responding to new regulatory challenges, and implementing internal audit actions. Your leadership, commercial acumen, analytical skills, and ability to drive major change activities will be essential in delivering successful outcomes in a dynamic and challenging environment. Who you are You are a seasoned senior leader with a proven track record of driving significant commercial delivery and operational excellence. With strong commercial acumen and analytical skills, you excel in balancing customer benefits, commercial return, and operational efficiency. Your ability to develop, communicate, and lead major change initiatives, coupled with your experience in process management and optimisation, positions you as a strategic leader capable of driving continuous improvement and delivering impactful business outcomes in a fast-changing regulatory environment. Your leadership, judgement, and influencing skills enable you to attract and develop diverse talent, foster a culture of compliance, and inspire confidence among colleagues and stakeholders, ultimately shaping the future vision and success of the Commercial Planning function. Essential Criteria Proven track record of current significant commercial delivery and operational excellence within a complex, large, multi-channel food retail organisation Demonstrated current senior leadership experience, including building and leading high-performing teams Strong commercial acumen and advanced analytical skills, with a high level of organisational detail – experience in delivering through the detail is a must Experience in developing, communicating, and leading major change initiatives, particularly in process management, optimisation, and regulatory compliance. Excellent high level influencing, judgement skills and experience at all levels of stakeholder management, including up to Board Level Proven experience and proficient in managing a diverse range of workload