Job PurposeThe Senior Planning & Operations Specialist, Manipulatives owns end-to-end operational planning and execution for physical instructional manipulatives, including forecasting, production planning, and fulfillment readiness. Reporting to the Senior Director, Strategic Operations, this role partners closely with Product, Marketing, Sales, ePMO, and external vendors to ensure manipulatives are available, cost-effective, and aligned to go-to-market timelines and instructional priorities.
This position plays a critical role in balancing demand variability, manufacturing constraints, and district-level delivery expectations-particularly during peak adoption and back-to-school cycles.
ResponsibilitiesPlanning & Forecasting
- Participate with various stakeholders on forecasting for manipulatives across adoption cycles, pilots, samples, and replenishment.
- Develop and maintain long-range capacity and inventory models to support growth and seasonality.
- Communicate and monitor forecasts with vendors to ensure product availability
- Partner with Sales and Marketing to assess component availability risk and mitigation strategies.
Inventory & Supply Chain Operations
- Monitor established inventory strategy for manipulatives, including safety stock, reserve inventory, and obsolescence management.
- Monitor inventory health (on-hand, committed, backordered, reserved) and drive corrective actions as needed.
- Manage manufacturing and vendor relationships, including lead times, MOQs, cost controls, and quality standards.
Cross-Functional Execution
- Work with Order Management and Customer Success to resolve fulfillment issues, shortages, or escalations.
- Serve as the primary operational point of contact for manipulative-related inquiries.
Reporting & Continuous Improvement
- Develop dashboards and reporting for manipulative inventory levels, forecast accuracy, fulfillment performance, and risk indicators.
- Identify process improvements to reduce cost, increase reliability, and improve cross-team visibility.
- Document and maintain SOPs related to planning, inventory management, and fulfillment workflows.
- Coordinate RFP and RFQ processes with internal and external stakeholders.
Requirements- 5+ years of experience in education space with extensive experience in operations, supply chain, planning, or production management.
- Experience managing physical products (print, kits, manipulatives, or educational materials).
- Strong forecasting, analytical, and inventory planning skills.
- Proven ability to work cross-functionally with Sales, Marketing, Product, and Operations teams.
- Experience working with ERP and CRM systems (e.g., NetSuite, Salesforce).
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate complex operational data into clear insights.
Preferred Qualifications- Familiarity with adoption-driven demand cycles and back-to-school fulfillment.
- Experience managing 3PL relationships and overseas or domestic manufacturing vendors.
- Advanced Excel / data modeling skills; familiarity with BI tools a plus.
Required EducationBachelor's degree in a related field.
StatusFull-time
LocationRemote
The expected base salary range for this position is $78,000-$88,000, however the offered salarymay be higher or lower than the above range dependent on numerous factors including, but not limited to location, work experience, skills and internal equity considerations. The base salary is not inclusive of benefits or other incentives.
A cover letter and resume are required to be considered for this position.
New employees will be required to successfully complete a background check.
Any communication to applicants relating to the Great Minds hiring process will only come from email addresses with the domains
greatminds.org or
greatminds.recruitee.com. If in the course of the application or hiring process with Great Minds you are contacted through another domain, are requested to provide banking or other sensitive information, or you note any other suspicious activity, please contact [redacted]
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