Category Strategy Manager - Frozen Meals

Lead the development, deployment, and continuous refinement of category strategies that drive growth, elevate customer centricity, and champion a "Category First" mindset across the business. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to create a compelling Category Vision and Strategy, support commercial action plans, and deliver actionable insights from retailer, market, and consumer data.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy Development & Leadership

• Develop, maintain, and deploy a rolling 3-year category strategic vision and influence division's Market Business Strategy (MBS) and commercial objectives to align with category growth dynamics
• Lead the creation of Category Strategies at national, channel, and customer levels, integrating internal and external trend analysis, shopper insights, and analytics
• Champion a "Category First" approach, guiding the organization in understanding category dynamics, competitive landscapes, and growth opportunities.
• Collaborate with Marketing, Sales, Insights, and Commercial Development teams to build and deploy innovation pipelines that support category growth.
• Act as a strong change leader to drive adoption of strategic direction for the division.

Insights & Analysis

• Review trends, marketplace assessments, category, consumer and shopper analysis to produce situation assessments with key learnings, implications, and recommendations.
• Leverage shopper insights, retailer feedback, and best practices to inform strategic direction and optimize the 4Ps (Product, Placement, Promotion, Pricing) across shopper touchpoints both online and in-store.
• Deliver compelling presentations that clearly communicate opportunities, issues, and the "so what" across the 4Ps.

Commercial Strategy Activation

• Partner with cross-functional teams (Marketing, Sales, Insights, Commercial Development) to ensure alignment and execution of category strategies.
• Provide consulting support & tools to enable Commercial Development and Field Category teams to effectively translate category strategy into retailer-specific execution plans
• Drive insight-led commercial action plans aligned to category growth across the 4Ps through shopper insights and analysis
• Lead development of key selling strategies and foster collaborative relationships with customer teams.
• Spearhead merchandising and assortment strategies to grow the category and optimize shopability (e.g., planograms, SKU prioritization, share of shelf) both in-store and online.
• Partner with Strategic Pricing to develop actionable pricing insights and capture profitable growth across channels.

Key Experiences & Requirements

• 5+ years' experience in Sales, Sales Planning, Marketing, Category Management, or Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG).
• Bachelor's degree (business-related preferred); advanced degree a plus
• Proven experience in business strategy development, creating and presenting roadmaps at national, channel, and customer levels.
• Strong analytical and business acumen, with the ability to use data and insights to build compelling sales stories and understand customer needs.
• Demonstrated ability to motivate and develop people, and to lead cross-functional teams.
• Working knowledge of channels of trade, customer base, and operating models across key classes of trade and formats.
• Proficiency in business-driving technology solutions (e.g., Circana, IRI, Nielsen, Numerator, BW, Sharpr) and leveraging industry insights and trends.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Knowledge of interrelationship of key functions and their key initiatives (Sales, Marketing, Finance, HR, Supply Chain, Technical, IS/IT).

77099058