Closing Date: 29 April 2025
Join UN World Food Programme as a Junior Supply Chain Planner (open worldwide)
About WFP
The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity, for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.
At WFP, people are at the heart of everything it does and the vision of the future WFP workforce is one of diverse, committed, skilled, and high performing teams, selected on merit, operating in a healthy and inclusive work environment, living WFP’s values (Integrity, Collaboration, Commitment, Humanity, and Inclusion) and working with partners to save and change the lives of those WFP serves.
Key Accountabilities
With growing humanitarian needs far outpacing increases in funding, better planning is critical to improve WFP’s efficiency and ability to operate in an environment with frequent supply chain disruptions. To that end, WFP has established a team of experts in Supply Chain Planning & Optimization (SPOs) that apply best practices in supply chain management and advanced analytics to humanitarian operations, using their unique expertise to develop integrated sourcing and delivery plans, provide operational foresight in support of data-driven decision-making, and optimize operational design, both for WFP operations and those of its partners.
SPOs share a cross-functional knowledge of operations, enabling end-to-end supply chain planning and increased coordination across functions. By automating complex data crunching and reconciliation across units and systems, SPOs allow key staff to better manage their time and focus on more value-added tasks, such as analyzing various planning scenarios, and alerting on issues and potential risks.
Based on the demonstrated impact of this approach to managing humanitarian operations, the SPO function is now being institutionalized across the organization, with new positions being created to support HQs and its field offices. These SPOs are part of a global planning network, equipped with a suite of analytical tools and processes that were created to support efficient supply chain management, and will be responsible for improving operations at global, regional, and country level, either for WFP or its partner agencies and governments (hereafter: “client”). WFP is now accepting applications for the SPO rosters, allowing to rapidly respond to new vacancies and requests for analytical support from WFP functions and partners.
The Junior Supply Chain Planner will be embedded in one of WFP’s offices, either its headquarters in Rome, one of six Regional Bureaus, or a Country Office. Independent of the office and client, the role will always revolve around supply chain planning, optimization and operational analytics, in support of data-driven decision-making for operations management. Specific responsibilities include but will not be limited to:
- Development of optimized sourcing and delivery plans, accounting for all physical and financial constraints.
- Elaboration of demand plans, using forecasting tools, and enriched with information gathered from relevant parties .
- Creation of forward-looking projections and scenario analyses to maximize demand coverage, anticipate potential issues, and identify mitigating actions.
- Producing and leveraging performance metrics for improved supply chain planning.
- Evaluating the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of different operational designs.
- Enable the adoption of best practices and advanced analytics in operations management, and strengthen the capacity of the client’s staff in these areas.
- Engaging in discussions on replenishment of corporate inventories, ensuring adequate inventory levels to meet forecasted demand.
- Perform what-if scenario analyses to support the resolution of ad-hoc issues and emergencies affecting the client’s operations.
- Coordinate closely with relevant business functions to ensure end-to-end visibility and cross-functional buy-in.
- Support the development, testing, and implementation of analytical solutions that improve or optimize the client’s operations.
The Junior Supply Chain Planner position is a Junior Consultancy.
Standard Minimum Qualifications
Education
Advanced university degree in the area of Supply Chain Management, Engineering, Data Science, Operations Research, Business Management, or related fields.
Years of relevant professional experience:
Junior Consultancy: At least one year of relevant professional experience.
Competencies:
Supply Chain Management, Planning and Organization, Problem solving, Negotiation, Effective Communication.
Desired Experiences
Professional experience is desired (but not necessarily required) in the following areas:
- Experience in SC-related industry (e.g. supporting S&OP-type processes, demand planning, material planning, distribution planning, procurement, shipping) is required.
- Experience in using analytics to support operations management (e.g. planning, optimizing supply chain networks, development of KPIs and visualization dashboards) is required.
- Experience with consultancy-type activities (e.g. business analysis, process mapping, data transformation and analysis, presenting conclusions to senior management) is desired.
- Experience working with government or humanitarian agencies (e.g. UN, NGOs) is desired, particularly in the areas of technical assistance and/or capacity strengthening.
- Experience with developing analytical solutions (e.g. dashboards, optimization models, data transformation pipelines) is desired.
- Experience with software development adapted to data analytics (e.g. Python, R, SQL, git) is desired.
- Experience with optimization tools and methods (e.g., linear programming, graph algorithms, heuristics) is desired.
- Experience with forecasting and statistical models (e.g. regression analysis, clustering, random forest) is desired.
- Highly numerate, able to rapidly analyze and interpret data.
- Problem-solving attitude, able to structure ambiguous problems and solve them through a mix of quantitative and qualitative analyses.
- Highly developed communication skills, able to use written and verbal mediums to communicate recommendations and influence outcomes.
- Strong time management skills with an ability to plan ahead and anticipate requirements, problems, and obstacles.
- Self-motivated and proactive, able to take initiative and work autonomously to achieve objectives.
- Ability to juggle competing priorities successfully while working under (sometimes) tight deadlines.
- Effective people skills, able to work both individually and in a team in a multi-cultural environment.
- Ability to interact with senior leaders and a wide range of stakeholders with credibility and tact.
- Fully committed and motivated to achieve the aims of the World Food Programme.
Languages:
- You are fluent in oral and written English and have technical writing skills.
- Intermediate knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, French, Chinese, Russian and Spanish) or Portuguese (one of WFP’s working languages) is desirable and required for some offices.
Click Here To Apply
Follow Opportunities For Everyone on Social Media
