UK

United Kingdom · Operations · Director/VP (16-20 years)

Director of Operations Planning

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  • Experience bandDirector/VP (16-20 years)
  • Direct reports3-8 reports
  • Reports toVP of Operations Strategy
  • UK framework levelUsually a director, accountable for a division and its numbers

Also advertised as VP, Capacity Strategy · Head of Global Operations Planning · Director, Supply Chain Planning · Senior Director, Resource Optimisation

Built on 43,079 real UK job descriptions we analysed · grounded in qualifications employers recognise

Two short quizzes about you

1From this job to a course

The qualifications matched to this job

FDQ Level 3 Certificate for Proficiency in Food Industry Skills FDQ Limited · Level 3 · covers 1 of 23 standards
FDQ Level 3 Diploma For Proficiency in Fish and Shellfish Industry Skills FDQ Limited · Level 3 · covers 1 of 23 standards
OTHM Level 7 Diploma in Data Science OTHM Qualifications · Level 7 · covers 2 of 23 standards
IAO Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management Innovate Awarding · Level 5 · covers 3 of 23 standards
NCC Education Level 5 Extended Diploma in Computing with Data Science NCC Education Limited · Level 5 · covers 1 of 23 standards
Level 6 Award in Data-led Decision Making Institute of Sales Professionals · Level 6 · covers 1 of 23 standards

Matched from the standards this job is measured against: a suggestion, not an official ruling.

The units you would start with

Plan production schedules in food manufacture FDQ Level 3 Certificate for Proficiency in Food Industry Skills
Data Analysis and Visualisation OTHM Level 7 Diploma in Data Science
Workforce planning IAO Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management
Introduction to Data Science and Big Data NCC Education Level 5 Extended Diploma in Computing with Data Science
Data-led Decision Making Level 6 Award in Data-led Decision Making

The future skills this job leans on

AI Fluency working with AI as a thinking partner
Data Fluency turning numbers into a decision
AI Governance Fluency using AI responsibly
Automation Fluency building AI into how work runs
Change Fluency taking people through change
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Your Plan Illustration

Built for Director of Operations Planning

5 units that map to this job, from the qualifications that cover it.

  1. Plan production schedules in food manufacture FDQ Limited · covers 1 of 23 standards Level 3
  2. Data Analysis and Visualisation OTHM Qualifications · covers 2 of 23 standards Level 7
  3. Workforce planning Innovate Awarding · covers 3 of 23 standards Level 5
  4. Introduction to Data Science and Big Data NCC Education Limited · covers 1 of 23 standards Level 5
  5. Data-led Decision Making Institute of Sales Professionals · covers 1 of 23 standards Level 6
These are the real units behind this job, in the order they rank for it. Nothing here is marked done, because this plan has not been started by anyone yet. Yours would fill in as you go.

2AI and this work

Will AI change your work as a Director of Operations Planning?

Nobody can say exactly how. Here is what this job is being asked for next, and where to start.

The new skills this role is being asked for

  • AI Ethics & Responsible Automation Leadership
  • Digital Transformation Leadership & Change Management
Why each one is rising

The future skills this job leans on

We'll only ever tell you what we can actually back up. No hype, no scare tactics.

What happens when you start

Next, a free account. We build your Director of Operations Planning plan as you set up, starting with a Future Fluency module on using AI in your job. No card.

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3What this role really is

A Director of Operations Planning builds the multi-year capacity strategy for a business unit, deciding where to invest in people, plant and technology to meet demand.

4What you'd actually use

The tools this job runs on, and how well you'd need to know each one.

Excel (Power Query, Solver, VBA, Advanced Charting) Strategic

Auditing and validating complex models built by your team. You'll focus on the business assumptions and strategic implications, not the formula-level details, but you'll know exactly what's under the hood.

SAP S/4HANA, Oracle NetSuite, Blue Yonder WMS (or similar ERP/WMS) Architect

Involved in module selection, system integration decisions, and defining data governance standards for capacity-related data fields. You'll ensure our systems support our strategic planning needs.

Tableau, Microsoft Power BI (or similar BI platform) Strategic

Defining the organisation's BI strategy for operational reporting. You'll manage access and publishing rights, ensuring the right information gets to the right people at the right time for strategic decisions.

Python (pandas, SciPy, Prophet) / R Strategic

Determining which advanced modelling or simulation approach is appropriate for a given strategic business problem. You'll champion investment in advanced analytics capabilities and guide your team's technical direction.

Anaplan, Pigment (or similar Financial/Ops Planning platform) Expert/Architect

Designing and architecting the entire enterprise planning model within these platforms. You'll ensure seamless integration between Finance, Sales, and Operations plans at a strategic level.

SQL (T-SQL, PL/SQL, or similar) Strategic

Working with data engineering and IT to define requirements for data marts and warehouses that support the strategic capacity planning needs of the entire business unit. You'll ensure data availability and quality.

5What you get to decide, and how that grows

Power in a job isn't your title. It's what you're allowed to decide. Here's how it grows as you move up.

The choiceComing in Where you are nowThe step above
Capacity Investment (CapEx) Provides data for business cases. Develops initial CapEx proposals for specific projects (e.g., a new forklift). Recommends CapEx projects up to £50K. Develops detailed business cases for larger investments.
Strategic Planning Methodology Uses established planning templates. Suggests minor improvements to existing methodologies. Designs new planning models and methodologies for specific workstreams.
Team Hiring & Structure No hiring authority. Participates in interviews for junior roles. Interviews and provides strong recommendations for L1/L2 roles. Mentors new hires.
Operational Risk Mitigation Flags potential issues to supervisor. Identifies and proposes solutions for routine operational risks. Develops contingency plans for specific workstreams. Quantifies risk impact.

6How you'll be judged

The scoreboard, and what is not on it. The hard targets, how often each is actually looked at, and the quiet signals that never reach a dashboard.

Capacity Utilisation Rate
The percentage of our available operational capacity (e.g., manufacturing lines, warehouse space, FTEs) that is actually being used.
Target · Optimise for 80-90% utilisation, balancing efficiency with necessary buffers.

If our target is 85% utilisation, and we're consistently at 95% with high overtime, that tells us we're under-resourced. If we're at 70%, we're likely over-invested. You'll manage this balance.

Capital Expenditure (CapEx) Efficiency
The return on investment for major capacity-related capital projects (e.g., new facilities, automation).
Target · Achieve a minimum ROI of 15% on all approved CapEx projects within 3 years.

A £5M investment in a new automated warehouse should deliver at least £750K in annual savings or increased throughput within three years. You'll be accountable for these forecasts.

Service Level Agreement (SLA) Attainment
The percentage of customer orders or service requests that meet our promised delivery or response times, directly enabled by your capacity plans.
Target · Maintain 99%+ attainment for all critical customer SLAs.

If our on-time delivery rate drops below 99%, we'll be looking at whether the capacity plan was sufficient, or if there were execution issues. You own the 'sufficient capacity' part.

Long-Range Forecast Accuracy
How close our 12-24 month capacity forecasts are to actual demand, typically measured by Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE).
Target · Achieve <10% MAPE on 12-month forecasts, <15% on 24-month forecasts.

If our 18-month forecast for Q3 2025 was 100,000 units, and actual demand was 120,000, that's a 20% error. You'll be driving improvements here to avoid surprises.

Strategic Alignment & Influence
How effectively your capacity plans integrate with and influence broader business strategy, and your ability to gain buy-in from executive stakeholders.
  • You're regularly invited to C-suite strategy sessions. Your recommendations are consistently adopted. VPs from other departments proactively seek your input before launching new initiatives. You're seen as a trusted advisor, not just a numbers person.
Talent Development & Team Leadership
Your ability to build, mentor, and retain a high-performing capacity planning team, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and strategic thinking.
  • Your direct reports are consistently promoted or take on more complex roles. Your team's engagement scores are high. You're known for developing future leaders. You've successfully onboarded and integrated new talent into the team.
Risk Mitigation & Scenario Planning
How well you identify, quantify, and plan for operational risks (e.g., supply chain disruptions, labour shortages, market volatility) through robust scenario modelling.
  • You present clear 'what-if' scenarios to the board, outlining the costs and benefits of different capacity strategies. We're rarely caught off guard by major operational challenges because you've already modelled them. Your plans include clear contingency measures.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
The effectiveness of your partnerships with Sales, Finance, Product, and Supply Chain to create a unified operational plan.
  • You lead the S&OP process, and it runs smoothly with clear outcomes. Other department heads praise your team's ability to work with them. There's a shared understanding of capacity constraints and opportunities across the business unit.

7Would you like it

Both sides. What people enjoy, and what grinds them down.

What people enjoy
Strategic Impact & Business Transformation

You'll spend your days shaping the long-term operational strategy of a business unit, making decisions that directly influence our growth trajectory and profitability. This means leading discussions on major capital investments, new market entry, and significant process overhauls.

Leading the initiative to open a new distribution centre in Europe, from site selection analysis to operational readiness, knowing it will unlock £10M+ in new revenue.

Problem Solving at Scale

You thrive on tackling complex, ambiguous, multi-year problems that require deep analytical rigour and creative solutions. These aren't just small tweaks; they're systemic challenges that impact hundreds of people and millions in spend.

Developing a new global capacity model that accounts for geopolitical risks, fluctuating labour costs, and varying customer demand patterns across multiple regions.

Building & Developing High-Performing Teams

A significant part of your role involves recruiting, mentoring, and empowering a team of talented capacity planners. You'll get immense satisfaction from seeing your team members grow, take on more responsibility, and deliver outstanding results.

Coaching a Lead Planner through a challenging stakeholder negotiation, then seeing them successfully secure buy-in for a critical operational change.

What frustrates people
  • Consistently receiving wildly optimistic sales forecasts that you're politically pressured to plan for, only to have them miss by 40%, leaving you with expensive, idle capacity.
  • Having your entire week of strategic, long-range planning derailed by an 'urgent' request from the CEO to analyse a minor operational issue that flared up yesterday.
  • Being the person who has to tell powerful stakeholders 'no', presenting data that proves their pet project is unfeasible with current resources, and then weathering the political fallout.
  • The endless battle of explaining to finance teams why running at 98% utilisation is a recipe for disaster and that 'planned downtime' or 'buffer capacity' is a necessary cost, not a sign of inefficiency.
  • Dealing with fragmented, inconsistent data from multiple legacy systems that makes robust analysis a constant uphill battle.
What this role does not give you
  • A purely technical individual contributor path—this role is about leadership and strategy, not just deep modelling.
  • A predictable, '9-to-5' routine—expect urgent requests, shifting priorities, and the need to adapt constantly.
  • An environment where every single recommendation you make is immediately adopted without challenge.
  • A role where you can avoid difficult conversations with senior leaders.

8Who you work with

This role directly shapes the operational footprint and capability of a significant business unit. Your decisions on capacity investment, location strategy, and workforce planning will have multi-million pound P&L implications over several years. You're not just reacting to demand; you're proactively building the engine that will meet it, influencing everything from customer satisfaction to shareholder value. Frankly, you're a critical enabler of our long-term growth.

Inside the business
  • VP of Sales & Marketing
  • CFO and Finance Leadership
  • VP of Product Development
  • Head of Supply Chain
  • Regional Operations Directors
  • HR Leadership
Outside the business
  • Strategic suppliers and vendors
  • Key technology partners
  • Industry bodies and regulatory authorities
  • Board members (for strategic updates)

9What you need before you start

Not a wish list. The things you would be expected to already have.

  • Proven experience (10+ years) in a senior capacity planning or operations strategy role, ideally within a complex, multi-site or global organisation.
  • Demonstrable track record of leading significant operational planning initiatives that have delivered measurable business impact (e.g., cost savings, improved service levels).
  • Experience managing and developing a team of analytical professionals, including performance management and career progression.
  • Expert-level proficiency in at least one enterprise planning software (e.g., Anaplan, Pigment) and advanced data analysis tools (e.g., Python, SQL).
  • Strong understanding of financial principles and experience managing large operational budgets (£2M+).

10What to practise next

Where the job is going, and what to do about it starting this week.

Advanced Prescriptive Analytics & Optimisation

Moving beyond just predicting what will happen to recommending what should happen to achieve specific business goals, given a set of constraints. This is the holy grail of capacity planning, directly driving optimal decisions.

Mathematical optimisation techniques (linear programming, mixed-integer programming) · Constraint programming · Reinforcement learning for dynamic resource allocation · Multi-objective optimisation

  • This month: Research leading vendors in prescriptive analytics and optimisation software.
  • This quarter: Identify one complex operational problem in your business unit that could benefit from optimisation and scope a pilot project.
  • Next 6 months: Work with your team to build a simple optimisation model using Python's SciPy or PuLP libraries.
  • Next 12 months: Champion the adoption of a dedicated prescriptive analytics platform or capability within Operations.

Quick win: Challenge your team to move beyond 'what-if' scenarios to 'what's the best way to do this given our constraints?'

Cloud-Native Data & Analytics Architecture

The future of scalable, flexible, and cost-effective data processing and analytics is in the cloud. As a Director, you'll need to understand how to leverage cloud platforms to build robust, future-proof planning capabilities, not just rely on on-premise solutions.

Cloud data warehousing (e.g., Snowflake, Google BigQuery) · Serverless computing for data pipelines (e.g., AWS Lambda, Azure Functions) · Data lake vs. data warehouse strategies · Data governance and security in the cloud

  • This month: Familiarise yourself with the basic concepts of one major cloud provider's (AWS, Azure, GCP) data services.
  • This quarter: Work closely with IT and Data Engineering to understand our current cloud strategy and data architecture.
  • Next 6 months: Participate in a project to migrate a key operational dataset to a cloud data warehouse.
  • Next 12 months: Influence the roadmap for our cloud analytics platform to better support future capacity planning needs.

Quick win: Ask your IT partners to explain our current cloud data infrastructure. Understand where our planning data lives and how it moves.

11Staying current once you are in

What people here do to keep up
  • Regularly attend industry conferences (e.g., Gartner Supply Chain Symposium, CSCMP) to stay abreast of emerging trends and network with peers.
  • Participate in executive leadership development programmes focused on strategic thinking, change management, and organisational influence.
  • Engage in continuous learning through online courses or workshops on advanced analytics, AI/ML applications in operations, and cloud architecture.
  • Seek out opportunities to mentor junior professionals, which often solidifies your own understanding and leadership capabilities.

12The rising capability

The rising capability

Zavmo analysis

What's rising in its place

This is where the work is heading, and the higher pay with it. Get fluent here and the shift stops being a threat and starts being your edge.

AI Ethics & Responsible Automation Leadership

As we increasingly use AI for forecasting, resource allocation, and even automated decision-making, understanding the ethical implications (bias, fairness, transparency) is paramount. Regulators and customers will demand it, and your reputation depends on it.

  • Bias detection and mitigation in algorithms
  • Explainable AI (XAI)
  • Data privacy and governance for AI
  • Human-in-the-loop decision processes

Digital Transformation Leadership & Change Management

It's no longer enough to just adopt new tech; you need to lead the entire business unit through fundamental changes in how we operate. This means overcoming resistance, building new capabilities, and ensuring the benefits are realised, not just promised.

  • Change management methodologies (e.g., ADKAR)
  • Digital fluency for non-technical leaders
  • Organisational design for agility
  • Value realisation tracking

13What you’ll use

What you’ll use

Skills this role draws on

Technical

  • Demand Forecasting (Advanced Strategic)
  • Theory of Constraints (TOC) & System Optimisation
  • Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) Leadership
  • Workforce Management (Strategic WFM)
  • Monte Carlo Simulation & Risk Modelling
  • Lean / Six Sigma (Strategic Application)

14The pathway

The pathway

How you actually get there, here

How you become one varies far more by country than what one does. This is the UK route. Most people take one of these ways in; the right one depends on where you're starting from.

  1. 1

    From Senior Capacity Planning Manager (L5)

    3-5 years as an L5 Manager

    Skills to master

    • Mastering cross-functional influence, P&L management for a department, and leading a team of managers. You'll need to demonstrate consistent delivery of strategic objectives and a knack for talent development.

    You're ready to move on when

    • Successfully owned and delivered the capacity plan for a significant region or product line, consistently hitting targets.
    • Built and developed a high-performing team, with clear evidence of direct reports progressing in their careers.
    • Consistently influenced executive-level decisions through robust data and compelling presentations.
    • Led a major operational improvement initiative that delivered significant, measurable business impact.
  2. 2

    From Head of Operations for a smaller business unit

    5-8 years in a similar leadership role

    Skills to master

    • Translating broader operational leadership into deep, strategic capacity planning expertise. You'll need to demonstrate a strong analytical foundation and a passion for long-range planning, even if your previous role was more generalist.

    You're ready to move on when

    • Demonstrated strong analytical capabilities and a data-driven approach to operational problem-solving.
    • Managed a P&L and driven significant cost optimisation or revenue growth in a previous role.
    • Proven ability to lead and develop diverse operational teams.
    • A clear understanding of the strategic importance of capacity planning and its impact on business outcomes.
  3. 3

    From Senior Management Consultant (Operations/Supply Chain focus)

    8-12 years in consulting, with significant project leadership

    Skills to master

    • Transitioning from advisory to executive ownership. You'll need to demonstrate the ability to not just recommend, but to build and run a function, manage a team, and integrate into a corporate culture. Practical execution and team leadership are key.

    You're ready to move on when

    • Led multiple large-scale operations strategy or capacity planning engagements for diverse clients.
    • Developed deep expertise in a specific industry sector relevant to our business.
    • Proven ability to influence senior client stakeholders and drive significant organisational change.
    • A strong desire to move into an executive operational role with direct P&L and team responsibility.

15Where this role leads

The long view: This work can lead to wider operations leadership, such as Chief Operations Officer or Chief Supply Chain Officer, or into overall corporate strategy as Chief Strategy Officer.

The ten Future Fluencies

Zavmo analysis

The credential is what you can do today. These are what keep you valuable.

A qualification proves you can do the job as it's defined today. These ten are what decide whether you're still the obvious person for it in five years. They're the capabilities employers are now writing into senior roles faster than people are learning them. Zavmo weaves them through whatever you study, so you come out with both: the credential and the fluency.

The highlighted ones are the Fluencies your role leans on hardest, from how Director of Operations Planning is actually changing.

Where it leads

Roles this leads to

The record names a next step, but the catalogue has no page for it yet:

  • VP of Operations Strategy (L7)
  • VP of Supply Chain or Head of Global Manufacturing

How you would learn this

One to one, on the work you already do

A tutor sets the task against your own job and marks the reasoning, at your pace. There is no cohort to fall behind.

A lesson from Plan production schedules in food manufacture, worked against Director of Operations Planning.

Plan production schedules in food manufacture Level 3

Applied to your work in Director of Operations Planning

The objective of this unit is to equip learners with the skills and knowledge to effectively plan production schedules in food manufacture. Learners will learn how to manage work within teams, allocate resources efficiently, and ensure the availability of necessary materials. Upon completion, learners will be able to identify potential production problems, implement preventative measures, and maintain accurate records of production schedules.

How the thinking builds
  1. 1 Remember
  2. 2 Understand
  3. 3 Apply
  4. 4 Analyse
  5. 5 Evaluate
  6. 6 Create
An illustration of a Zavmo lesson, built from this role’s own route. The unit, its objective and every criterion above are the awarding body’s own words, not an example.

It is £70 a month, billed monthly. Your free first module is Future Fluency, and you can cancel any time.

Start my Director of Operations Planning plan, free
See Your Progress Grow Illustration
Director of Operations Planning
  • Demand Forecasting (Advanced Strategic)
  • Theory of Constraints (TOC) & System Optimisation
  • Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) Leadership
  • Workforce Management (Strategic WFM)
  • Monte Carlo Simulation & Risk Modelling
  • Lean / Six Sigma (Strategic Application)
This is your Mind Palace on learn.zavmo.ai. Every skill above comes from this role's own record, not an example borrowed from another job. A node lights up when you evidence it, and what you build stays yours between jobs. That is the part a course cannot do.

16The detail, folded away

Everything else the record holds

The career branches in full, how AI is already showing up in the day-to-day, and the questions people ask about this job. Here when you want them, out of the way while you decide.

Where it leads next, rung by rung

Where it leads

The career path, and where it branches

Director of Operations Planning is a start, not a ceiling. Each step below asks for new skills and hands back more autonomy.

  1. VP of Operations Strategy (L7)

    3-5 years as Director of Operations Planning

    This is a significant step up, moving from business unit strategy to enterprise-wide operational strategy. You'll be influencing the entire company's direction.

    • Macroeconomic trend analysis and geopolitical risk assessment
    • Advanced financial modelling for enterprise-level capital allocation
    • Global regulatory compliance and trade policy understanding
    • Leading large-scale, multi-year transformational programmes

  2. VP of Supply Chain or Head of Global Manufacturing

    4-6 years as Director of Operations Planning

    This pathway involves broadening your scope beyond just planning to encompass the entire supply chain or manufacturing footprint, with full P&L and operational accountability.

    • Advanced inventory optimisation and working capital management
    • Global logistics network design and freight optimisation
    • Lean manufacturing and Industry 4.0 implementation
    • International trade compliance and customs regulations
Working with AI on the job

Working with AI

Where AI is starting to help

Let's be real: much of strategic planning involves sifting through mountains of data, running countless scenarios, and then trying to summarise it all for busy executives. What if you could offload the tedious, repetitive parts and focus purely on the high-value strategic thinking? That's where AI comes in.

For a Director of Operations Planning, AI isn't about replacing your strategic brain; it's about augmenting it. We're talking about tools that can handle the heavy lifting of data processing, identify patterns you might miss, and even draft those executive summaries, freeing you up to focus on the truly impactful decisions. Imagine having a super-smart assistant that never sleeps.

Automated Data Ingestion & Cleansing

Use AI-powered scripts (think Python with Pandas and specific ML libraries) to automatically pull raw, messy data from our various ERP, HRIS, and WMS systems. The AI flags anomalies, imputes missing values based on historical patterns, and structures the data into a clean, analysis-ready format. No more spending days just getting the data right.

Predictive Anomaly Detection

Deploy a machine learning model (like an LSTM network) that continuously monitors real-time operational data streams – call volumes, production units, inventory levels. It learns the 'normal' rhythm of our operations and automatically alerts you to statistically significant deviations before they become full-blown crises. It's like having a crystal ball for operational hiccups.

AI-Powered Scenario Simulation

Instead of manually modelling 3-4 'what-if' scenarios, use an AI agent to run thousands of simulations. This tests a vast combination of variables – economic shifts, competitor actions, supply chain disruptions – and then presents you with an optimised, 'robustness-ranked' set of capacity plans. You'll move beyond guesswork to truly data-driven strategic options.

Executive Summary Generation

Feed the outputs of your complex models (spreadsheets, Tableau dashboards, simulation results) into a Generative AI tool. It analyses the data and produces a concise, natural-language executive summary for your S&OP presentations or board reports, highlighting key insights, risks, and trade-off decisions in clear business terms. Seriously, it's a game-changer for presentation prep.

Common questions

Common questions

How do you become a Director of Operations Planning?

Common routes in include From Senior Capacity Planning Manager (3-5 years as an L5 Manager), From Head of Operations for a smaller business unit (5-8 years in a similar leadership role) and From Senior Management Consultant (Operations/Supply Chain focus) (8-12 years in consulting, with significant project leadership). Times vary with prior experience.

Where can a Director of Operations Planning progress to?

This role can lead on to VP of Operations Strategy (3-5 years as Director of Operations Planning) and VP of Supply Chain or Head of Global Manufacturing (4-6 years as Director of Operations Planning), depending on the skills you build.

What new skills matter most for a Director of Operations Planning?

Increasingly, AI Ethics & Responsible Automation Leadership and Digital Transformation Leadership & Change Management. These are the skills our record of this role lists as growing.

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17Where to go from here

Other roles at Level 7

Same depth of qualification, different job. Useful if the work appeals but this particular role does not.

 More jobs in operations

Stay in the field you know and move sideways rather than up.
If you leave this industry

Strategic capacity planning skills carry across retail, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare and government. Forecasting demand and managing resources at scale is needed wherever operations run at scale.

This role profile is © 2026 Growth Engineering Technologies Ltd. Built from UK occupational standards and regulated qualification data, and written for Zavmo.

You're not behind. You're right on time. The shift is only just beginning. Your role won't look the same in two years. Be the one who leads the change, not the one it happens to. Start my Director of Operations Planning plan, free What happens next: a free account, then we build your plan as you set up. No card. Build your plan, see your roadmap and meet the twelve tutors matched to you. All free. When you're ready to start learning, it's £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.