Senior Category Manager

Senior Category Manager

The Senior Category Manager is a strategic thought leader responsible for driving category growth, retailer partnership opportunities, and data-driven business recommendations across Food, Mass, Club, E-commerce, and Dollar channels. This role leverages syndicated POS and panel data to develop actionable insights, identify category growth opportunities, influence retailer strategies, and support customer teams in delivering profitable growth.

The ideal candidate combines strong analytical capabilities with exceptional storytelling and relationship management skills, serving as a trusted advisor to both internal stakeholders and retail partners.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute category management strategies that drive category and company growth across Food, Mass, Club, E-commerce, and Dollar retail channels.
• Serve as the category expert, providing insights on consumer behavior, market trends, competitive dynamics, and category performance.
• Identify assortment, pricing, promotion, merchandising, and distribution opportunities that support retailer and manufacturer objectives.
• Lead category reviews, line reviews, seasonal business analyses, and retailer strategy presentations.
• Optimize planograms for shopability, space to sales, capacity and GMROII utilizing JDA Space Planning and other applicable tools and research.
• Serve as the primary administrator for the Blue Yonder Space Planning platform, including platform access, technical support coordination, purchase order management, vendor communication, and ongoing system functionality.
• Maintain the Space Planning library as a critical business asset by ensuring product data, images, dimensions, fixtures, and planning files are accurate, current, and accessible for planogram development.
• Protect data integrity and reduce execution risk by proactively maintaining planning assets, minimizing rework, and preventing merchandising errors caused by outdated or incomplete planogram information.
• Support future legislative and assortment transitions by accurately communicating transition items, new SKUs, product dimensions, and space planning requirements to retailers, wholesalers, and supply chain partners.
• Develop planograms for new business proposals and annual Product Line Reviews, directly supporting retailer presentations, business development, customer retention, and revenue growth.

Customer & Retailer Engagement

• Build strong relationships with key retail customers and internal sales teams.
• Deliver compelling retailer presentations supported by fact-based recommendations.
• Partner with Sales, Marketing, Insights, Product Management and Supply Chain teams to align category strategies with business objectives.
• Influence retailer decision-making through consultative selling and data-driven recommendations.

Data Analytics & Insights

• Analyze and interpret syndicated POS data, panel data, market trends, and shopper insights to uncover growth opportunities.
• Develop dashboards, scorecards, and regular business reviews to monitor category performance.
• Translate complex data into actionable business recommendations and executive-level storytelling.
• Conduct assortment optimization, distribution analysis, pricing studies, promotional effectiveness analysis, and competitive assessments.

Reporting & Business Performance

• Create and maintain recurring reporting for customers, sales leadership, and internal stakeholders.
• Monitor KPIs including sales, market share, distribution, velocity, pricing, and promotion metrics.
• Provide monthly, quarterly, and annual business performance updates.
• Support annual planning, forecasting, and customer business reviews.
• Knowledge Management/internal enablement using SharePoint knowledge hub gives the sales team access to updated sales materials, consumer insights, and shopper data.

Strategic Planning

• Develop strategic recommendations that improve category growth, retailer execution, and shopper engagement.
• Evaluate industry trends and emerging consumer behaviors to identify growth opportunities.
• Support innovation and new product launch strategies through consumer and market analysis.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to execute category growth initiatives.
• Vendor/third-party data partnership management, including renewals, budget discussions, and capability evaluation.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing or related field.
• 5-7 years of Category Management, Category Leadership, Shopper Insights, Sales Analytics, or related experience.
• Demonstrated experience supporting or managing key retail channels including: Food, Dollar, Club, E-Commerce and/or Mass.
• Advanced proficiency with syndicated data and reporting tools, including: NielsenIQ and/or other syndicated data platforms.
• Proficient in sales and marketing development, data analysis, Plan-O-Gram development, ability to conduct complex ad-hoc data analysis
• Advanced proficiency with JDA Space Planning, including data analysis, planogram development, complex ad-hoc analysis, Space Planning library management, product asset accuracy, in-tool reporting, and project data uploads.
• Experience analyzing panel data and shopper behavior insights.
• Advanced Excel, PowerPoint, and data visualization skills.
• Strong presentation and storytelling abilities.
• Self-starter, task oriented with the ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously
• Ability to travel as required for customer meetings, product knowledge events, and other customer-related activities

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in CPG environments.
• Experience leading customer-facing category management initiatives.
• Expertise in assortment optimization, shelf strategy, pricing, and promotion analytics.
• Experience developing retailer category reviews and strategic business recommendations.
• Familiarity with retailer-specific data platforms and loyalty datasets.

Compensation:

• The salary range is $95,000 - $135,000. This salary range listed is an estimate. Pay at Savant is determined by multiple factors including, but not limited to, a candidate's geographical location, relevant education, experience and skills and an evaluation of internal pay equity.
• This is a direct-hire position with full benefits including: medical insurance; dental insurance; vision plan; life insurance; pet insurance; FSA / HSA; 12 paid holidays; permissive time off policy; 401k plan with employer match; reimbursement for preapproved reasonable and necessary business expenses.