Sr. Category Manager, Foodserivce

The Sr. Category Manager plays a key role within the company's Category Management and Sales Organization in championing the use of category, consumer, and operator insights to drive Customer and company growth. This position utilizes a combination of specialized skills incorporating Foodservice Syndicated Data, Category Management Discipline, and Analytics Acumen with the objective to provide a comprehensive understanding and identification of channel, operator, and consumer opportunities to drive customer growth. As a member of the Customer Business Team, this individual will build relationships with key customer contacts, where they will be a category expert in helping develop category strategies, plans, and reporting that will deliver the overall business objectives.

Key Responsibilities

• Perform Master Data Management for assigned category (data acquisition, organization/segmentation, coding, cleanup, database modeling & maintenance, etc.)
• Lead development of customer-centric category reviews that integrate operator and consumer data, resulting in the establishment of strategies for assortment, innovation, operator targeting, promotion, stocking that reflect the customer and the company's strategies
• Lead analyses and strategic storytelling across multiple data sources to work with the customer to provide meaningful data-driven strategic direction for annual plans
• Lead development/delivery of monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting utilizing various datasets (Customer sell-out data, internal Sales Data, Syndicated data such as CREST, Supply Track, etc.) to identify performance opportunities and recommend strategic solutions to close gaps
• Execute and share Foodservice Category Management best practices or pertinent category and industry trends with stakeholders to impact category performance
• Establish and maintain excellent working relationships with Customer and internal teams
• Provide ad hoc analyses to support category initiatives and marketing field activation
• Provide thought leadership and category expertise to the company's marketing partners enabling team to make solid strategic decisions to drive business results
• Develop analyses and insights that highlight category assortment opportunities at the local, regional, and national levels; identify emerging product trends and risks
• Develop and lead the Category Management Discipline acting as key contact in implementing the category growth initiatives at the customer

Key Qualifications

• Working knowledge and experience with Foodservice or Retail syndicated resource information and applications (NPD, IRI, etc.)
• Strong knowledge of data manipulation, database design, foundational data analytics and data platform structures; ability to manage large data sets & databases
• Familiarity using dashboarding software (PowerBI, Tableau, etc.) is preferred
• Minimum 4-6 years in a Foodservice or CPG environment, in the areas of Category Management, Market Research, or Market/Pricing/Data Analytics
• Bachelor’s Degree (Business Administration, Statistics, and Economics).
• Ability to travel (up to 10%)
• Strong Microsoft Office Proficiency

The Sr. Category Manager demonstrates the following characteristics

• Analytical Mindset: Organizes and thinks through large amounts of information, arriving at a succinct conclusion
• Communicate effectively: Demonstrates ability to effectively express ideas and opinions
• Proficient project manager: Able to prioritize team-level tasks and manage schedule to complete work on time and within deliverable expectations
• Strong interpersonal skills: Able to work well with others and collaborate productively with other team members and external clients
• Passion for success, including the success of others: Track record of positive impact that includes a significant component of working with and through others to achieve the goal
• Developed Presentation Skills: Effective presentation acumen towards audiences of various sizes and management levels, including leading on-site meetings and presentations with the Customer and stakeholders
• Detail-oriented: Consistently delivers quality, error-free work with close attention to detail
• Strategic thinking and problem-solving: Understands category strategy and how to use analyses to deliver actionable findings for customers
• Effective storyteller: Consistently goes beyond the data and translates the data into meaningful strategic stories bringing the data to life and driving insights-based business decisions
• Intellectual curiosity: Approaches business questions with curiosity to understand, build insights, and ultimately solve for the right action
• Initiative: Takes responsibility to get work done efficiently and effectively