Business Planning Manager (12-month FTC)

Who are we? Argent Energy operate in the UK and Netherlands and are a leading European waste-based biodiesel producer with a vision to help decarbonise transport worldwide. We have ambitious plans to grow the business and enter new markets. Main purpose of the role The Business Planning Manager is accountable for: - In charge of driving the full optimisation of the long term strategic planning (18 months rolling forecast) based on business requirements and assets development - Optimizing plant output and ensure all risks mitigations are in place based on strong financial analysis - Leading and embedding the end-to-end Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process across the Group, ensuring customer demand is met through alignment of commercial requirements, operational capacity, inventory strategy and financial objectives. - The governance, preparation, coordination and facilitation of the S&OP cycle, ensuring robust cross-functional decision making between Sustainability, Commercial, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance and Logistics, and providing clear visibility of risks, constraints, trade-offs and required actions. - Data integrity, reporting accuracy and scenario modelling that underpin S&OP decisions, enabling timely escalation and executive decision making. This is a 12-month fixed-term contract. Your main responsibilities will be: - Lead, coach and develop the Planning team to deliver consistent high performance across sites. - Own the group planning framework and cadence, ensuring demand, supply, inventory and production plans are aligned to customer requirements, capacity and financial targets. - Ensure any decision are based on financial numbers - Ensure the quality, integrity and governance of planning master data and reporting, enabling accurate visibility, performance management and decision support. - Facilitate cross-functional S&OP discussions and decision making, ensuring risks, constraints and options are clearly articulated and appropriately escalated. - Build effective interfaces with Commercial, Operations, Trading, Sustainability, Procurement to anticipate changes (e.g., feedstock, customer demand, NPD/NPI) and ensure smooth planning transitions. - Define and embed inventory policy (e.g., safety stock, min/max parameters) and monitor adherence to support service, working capital and operational stability. - Drive continuous improvement, standard operating procedures and performance reporting (KPIs/visual management) to improve service, reliability and efficiency. - Drive standardised planning ways of working across sites, continuous improvement and digitalisation (including effective use of Oracle/ERP), and support strategic change initiatives through to implementation. - Own planning-system ways of working, including ongoing development of Oracle/ERP and related digital tools to improve planning effectiveness. - Drive/Assess strategic impact of our sustainability route Your key relationships will be: Internal - Commercial / Trade teams (demand signals, customer commitments, market changes) - Operations / Manufacturing & site planning teams (capacity, constraints, execution readiness) - Supply Chain / Logistics (inventory strategy, inbound/outbound constraints, service) - Sustainability department (compliance requirements to be embedded in planning processes and decisions) - Finance (alignment to financial objectives, working capital, performance reporting) - IT / ERP support (Oracle/ERP process adoption, data governance and improvements) External - Key customers (service commitments, demand changes, delivery expectations) - Key suppliers / service providers (where relevant to planning constraints and lead times)