IT AI Lead – Planning

Company: Smith & Nephew
Apply for the IT AI Lead – Planning
Location: Watford
Job Description:

Overview

In this AI Planning leadership role, you design and deliver AI-enabled supply chain planning solutions to boost forecasting accuracy and planning agility at Smith+Nephew. You will own the architecture and guide transformations across global planning teams, leveraging Kinaxis Maestro and advanced AI capabilities. You’ll shape scalable solutions, lead end-to-end delivery, and establish governance to maximize business value. This is a chance to drive intelligent planning at scale and partner with leadership to unlock performance.

Pay / Benefits

  • Generous annual bonus and pension schemes
  • Save As You Earn share options
  • Flexible vacation and time off
  • Paid holidays and paid volunteering hours
  • Private health and dental plans
  • Hybrid working model

Responsibilities

  • Lead design and delivery of AI-enabled supply chain planning solutions using Kinaxis Maestro
  • Own solution architecture across forecasting, intelligent planning workbooks, autonomous agents, and agent orchestration
  • Partner with business leaders to identify AI use cases and translate them into scalable solutions and planning frameworks
  • Lead end-to-end solution delivery including design, configuration, testing, deployment, and hypercare
  • Define data architecture and integration requirements for AI-driven capabilities
  • Act as a trusted advisor guiding the AI planning transformation journey
  • Facilitate workshops and build relationships across planning, data, and leadership teams to drive adoption
  • Establish best practices and governance standards while mentoring colleagues on AI and Kinaxis capabilities

Key requirements

  • 12+ years of experience in supply chain planning (demand, supply, inventory, production, materials planning, and S&OP/IBP)
  • 8–10 years hands-on Kinaxis Maestro or RapidResponse experience with multiple end-to-end implementations
  • Advanced Kinaxis configuration expertise across models, scenarios, analytics, dashboards, scorecards, widgets, and control sets
  • Proven experience developing and implementing AI, advanced analytics, and agentic planning solutions
  • Strong stakeholder management, communication, and leadership skills
  • Kinaxis certifications such as Author, Contributor, or Architect are preferred
  • stakeholder influence
  • clear communication
  • leadership
  • Kinaxis Maestro
  • RapidResponse
  • advanced analytics

…

Posted: October 1st, 2026