Category Insights Manager

The Category Insights Manager is responsible for transforming data into actionable insights that drive category growth across key grocery retailers. This role partners with Sales, Marketing, and cross‑functional teams to support strategic planning, optimize assortment, and respond to both real‑time analytics and long‑term trends within the grocery industry.

• Analyze category and competitive data using IRI and internal systems to identify growth drivers and whitespace opportunities.
• Create and deliver insight‑driven recommendations for key retail partners (e.g., Walmart, Kroger, Publix, Albertsons) to inform shelf placement, brand blocking, pricing, and promotion strategies.
• Lead insights development for category line reviews and customer presentations, using compelling, data‑backed storytelling.
• Monitor shifts in consumer behavior, market conditions, and emerging food trends to inform business strategy.
• Build and maintain performance dashboards and scorecards to track market share, velocity, distribution, and competitive dynamics.
• Collaborate with Sales, Marketing, and Innovation teams to align insights with commercial objectives and retailer‑specific strategies.
• Serve as an internal subject matter expert on food and grocery shopper behavior, macro trends, and category performance.

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Economics, or a related field.
• Strong analytical, critical thinking, and communication skills, with the ability to distill complex data into clear, strategic narratives.
• Proficient in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint; experience with Power BI is a plus.

• 2–3 years in one or more of the following:
  Category analyst or associate manager role at a CPG company or agency, shopper insights, consumer research, or trade marketing.
• Excel skills should include: VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP and INDEX‑MATCH for data merging and lookups, proficiency with Pivot Tables for summarizing large datasets, data cleaning using formulas such as TEXT, LEFT/RIGHT/MID, TRIM, and SUBSTITUTE, conditional formatting and dynamic tables for visualization, IF, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, and other logical/statistical formulas, creating and maintaining dashboards using charts, slicers, and named ranges.
• PowerPoint skills should include:
  Designing insight‑driven presentations tailored to internal and retail‑facing audiences, creating clean, visually compelling slides using charts, graphics, and iconography, building storytelling decks for line reviews, Joint Business Planning (JBP), and executive meetings, integrating Excel data using linked tables and dynamic charts, applying consistent formatting, master slides, and visual hierarchy for clarity and professionalism, communicating complex data in clear, concise, and actionable ways.

• Driving retailer alignment and incremental distribution through insight‑led selling stories.
• Enhancing internal decision‑making with proactive, trend‑forward category analysis.
• Becoming a trusted, go‑to voice on what drives the food and grocery shopper.