Senior Category Manager

• Fast Growing Branded and Own Label Drinks Supplier
• Hybrid Working: 2 Days per week from the purpose-built offices/manufacturing facilities in the East Midlands with the remainder of the week with customers or working from home.
• A unique opportunity to take strategic and operational control for a category & Insights function that spans Off Trade (Grocery), On Trade & International.

As Senior Category & Insights Manager, you will play a key role in helping our client to turn market, shopper, customer and consumer insight into commercial growth. Reporting into the commercial function, you will work closely with Sales, Marketing and NPD to provide the insight, analysis and recommendations that shape commercial strategy across Grocery, Convenience, Hospitality and International.

You will be the go-to person for category and insight, helping the business understand not only what is happening in the market, but why it is happening, what it means for customers, and what we should do about it.

This is a highly commercial role. You will be expected to proactively identify risks and opportunities, quantify the size of the prize and turn insight into clear recommendations and actions that deliver profitable growth. As the category function continues to develop, you will also have the opportunity to help shape how Category & Insights operates within our client and how they use data and insight to make better commercial decisions.

The ambition is to establish our client as a go-to category partner within premium soft drinks, providing customers with compelling insight and recommendations across range, distribution, space, location, promotion and availability.

• Develop and deliver category strategies and customer plans that support growth across UK Grocery, Convenience, Hospitality and International.
• Own and develop the category vision, ensuring it is embedded internally and brought to life with customers.
• Identify emerging category, shopper and consumer opportunities and proactively assess the potential impact on our client.
• Quantify the size of the prize for key opportunities and support the business in tracking performance against those opportunities.
• Translate category and consumer insight into clear commercial recommendations that can be acted upon by Sales, Marketing, NPD and our customers.
• Identify risks to future growth and proactively recommend actions to mitigate them.

• Be the go-to person for category and insight across the business, including weekly and monthly performance reporting.
• Bring together multiple data sources to develop a clear understanding of market, category, shopper and customer performance.
• Go beyond reporting the numbers to understand what is driving performance and what we should do about it.
• Turn complex data sets into simple, compelling stories with clear commercial implications and recommendations.
• Develop creative approaches to sourcing insight, particularly where traditional category data is limited or unavailable.
• Actively use primary and secondary research, external data sources, consumer trends and continuous insight initiatives to understand changing consumer attitudes and behaviour.
• Identify and communicate the latest category and consumer trends, the reasons behind them and the implications and opportunities for customers.
• Develop appropriate approaches to supporting Impulse and International where data availability is less comprehensive than Grocery.

• Build and strengthen relationships with key customers, positioning as a credible and valuable category partner.
• Lead customer range reviews, including space, flow, assortment, distribution and post-review analysis.
• Develop category recommendations across the key commercial levers, including range, distribution, space, location, promotion and availability.
• Support the Sales team with compelling customer presentations, category stories and recommendations.
• Use customer-specific data and insight to identify opportunities for both the customer and organisation.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with data providers, customers and external insight agencies.

• Work closely with the Marketing team to develop annual brand and category plans.
• Work cross-functionally with Sales, Marketing and NPD to identify opportunities for innovation and ensure NPD initiatives are grounded in robust category, shopper and consumer insight.
• Support…