Program Leader

Role Overview

• Senior leader overseeing merchandising, planning & supplychain change
• Ideal for candidates currently operating at Program leadership level

About Our Client

A well established enterprise undergoing a significant transformation of its planning and merchandising capabilities.

Job Description

• Lead the overarching transformation program across planning, merchandising, inventory, and demand workflows.
• Define and manage the enterprise implementation roadmap, ensuring alignment between business strategy and supporting technology.
• Oversee system design, configuration direction, and integration requirements across planning, merchandising, and supply functions.
• Work closely with technology, data, and architecture teams to ensure platform readiness, data quality, and scalability.
• Drive adoption of advanced analytics and AI‑enabled decisioning within planning and merchandising teams.
• Establish governance, operating structures, and engagement models between business stakeholders, IT, and delivery partners.
• Manage external implementation partners, ensuring delivery quality, milestone alignment, and issue resolution.
• Engage senior leadership confidently, presenting program progress, risks, and solution recommendations.
• Ensure process, data, and workflow changes are adopted consistently across all business units.

The Successful Applicant

• You bring 10-15+ years of experience across program management, consulting, retail technology, or large‑scale transformation environments, with a strong grounding in planning, merchandising operations, and inventory lifecycle management.
• You have delivered complex, multi‑business‑unit transformation programs and possess solid understanding of demand forecasting, replenishment, retail data models, and planning KPIs.
• You have practical exposure to AI/ML‑driven enterprise systems or advanced analytics used in decision support.
• You are experienced in enterprise system integration and comfortable working closely with data, engineering, and architecture teams.
• You excel in stakeholder alignment, communication, and program governance, with prior exposure to fashion, merchandising, or supply‑chain environments considered an advantage.
• Ability to be based in Dubai for a full‑time role.

What's on Offer

The successful candidate will shape the organisation's next‑generation planning and merchandising capability, lead a major technology and process transformation, and partner closely with senior leadership to modernise a core business function.

Contact

Ruwise Sheriff

Quote job ref

JN-032026-6973408