Rory Da Costa Email & Phone Number

Gloucester, England, United Kingdom

- Driving Service Level Improvement across several Business Units and Brand Owners- Functional leadership & talent development- Co-ordination of performance improvement projects - Setting Forecasting team strategy, roles and objectives.

Gloucester, England, United Kingdom

- Winner of GB Agency "Office Person of the Year Award 2022" - nominated and won on the basis of IBP cycle implementation and broad support to commercial and sales teams for budgeting process 2022/2023.- Manage 6 FTE Direct reports (Demand Planners). Ongoing Recruit; Train and Mentor philosophy as part of role.- Demand Planning / Forecasting remit across all brand owners on behalf of SHS GB Agency Business. Brand diversity includes broad range of FMCG across grocery and confectionery, drinks, household goods and Healthcare. Brand owners including Unilever / Mars / General Mills / Terry's Chocolate/ Reckitt Benckiser / GSK / Beiersdorf / Cloetta / Burtons / Twinings / FHP and others.- SAP IBP Demand Planning project implementation - leading cross divisional Demand Steerco.- S&OP Cycle implementation: act as divisional expert for embedding new IBP cycle and aligning business functions alongside key sales and commercial partners.- Focused driver of KPI improvement for Customer Service levels and Forecasting Accuracy.

Planning and merchandise remit, including product life cycles across 5 key brands where Bounty have full licence on Vans, Diesel, Superdry, Hurley, Jeep in 60 stores nationally• Team Managemento Responsible for 6 FTE direct reports (merchandise allocators & planners)o Training & mentoring, developing a highly capable internal, talent pool, having initially recruited the team tooo Merchandise Allocators – supporting them to manage high volume distribution from warehouse to storeso Planners – ensuring a very targeted approach to manage seasonal merchandise range plans through OTB control and best practice inventory management techniques.• Operational Planning | Managemento Translating the budget and gaining buy-in from key stakeholders, translating requirement across sales, quality, stock levels; per category and per storeo Range building & planning from concept, purpose and direction through to selecting products o Recognising trends, making commercial decisions across all merchandise planning functions o Analysis of non-performing or slow performing SKU with exit strategieso Management of stock allocation and open to buy (OTB), setting critical benchmarks o Extensive collaboration and communication with Executive Suite; Brand & Marketing Teams; Operational Teamo Generated and developed planning department policies, procedures and workflows• Achievementso Achieved 3 consecutive years of business level turnover & GP growth initially need to re-establish and embed all operation processes, workflows and planningo Successfully integrated 4 separate companies into 1 entityo Consistent accurate forecastingo Preparation & management of large budget values of up to £76m across retail, e-commerce & wholesale o Project lead for implementation and roll out of QlikSense BI reporting tool (visual design, technical structure, report generation)

Cape Town Area, South Africa

Enjoyed being an integral part of this comfort footwear brand with 700K shoes produced annually and distributed into 38 national own-brand stores• People Managemento Responsible for a team of 7 FTE direct reports (merchandise allocators and planners)o Developing, training and mentoring the team to make decisions with very similar remits to the above position• Operational Managemento Preparation of annual sales budgets and forecasts, down through the merchandise hierarchyo Oversight of factory production and demand planning including material resource planning – determining production values based on sales o Retail store forecasting across 38 stores including the opening of 8 new stores and 28 store renovations o Overseeing the wholesale channel and demand planning for over 1500 customers in retail & nonretail sectorso Managed seasonal OTB stock options and stock planso Generating robust presentations and annual sales budgets, reporting to C-Suite and additional stakeholders• Achievementso Spearheaded the merger of 2 national warehouse into 1 entityo Completed a stock rationalisation programme – reducing age stock, defining exit strategies, and setting markdowns, retaining aged stock to below 5%o Ensured a 95% stock rate through close managements of daily replenishment & inter-branch activitieso Achieved annual KPI requirement with ongoing margin balancing across ranges and divisionso Driver of full merchandise hierarchy realignment worked across 3 vendor systems

• Local start up business in the health sector - FMCG, cosmetics, household across 3 storeso Managed a team of 10 planners and merchandise allocators whilst also supporting the distribution centreo Budget planning and management and costing of new store rollout plans• Achievementso Implemented and embedded best practice planning principles, margin management, stock cover forecasting, GP benchmarkso Launched 4 new stores in 6 months including all merchandising and planning requiredo Built and solidified relationships with supplier

• Forecasting sales trends and patterns at a product, commercial line and store level with a view towards optimising sell-out / sell-in performance, maximising fulfilment rates, and minimising redundancy• Planning stock replenishment and logistics of an ongoing catalogue of approx. 900 niche luxury cosmetics products, and a further 100 variable seasonal products• Managing the monthly ordering of basic stock, supporting POSM material, marketing items within purchase budgets• Ongoing Regional / Demographic / Mall / Product Analysis, Price calculation, tracking, margin setting• Partnering with retailers to streamline their stock ordering process, stock mix, receipt plans and models

• Merchandise Planner across numerous divisions – Truworths Man / Ginger Mary / Ladies Casualwear / Living (Decor) / Fine Jewellery & Cellular - Seasonal Range Plans (Arthur)- Inventory control (OTB / WOS cover)- Post Seasonal AnalysisAwarded various citations for Best Performing Division, Individual Excellence, Best Buying & Team Planning

Post Graduate Diploma, Entrepreneurial Management

Bachelor'S Degree, Political Science And Philosophy