Shopper Marketing & Planning Manager

Your Purpose

The Shopper Marketing & Planning Manager is responsible for leading category-level marketing strategy, planning, and execution across assigned area(s) of business. This role serves as the primary liaison between Marketing, Merchandising, and external vendor partners, ensuring cohesive, customer-centric marketing plans that drive Harris Teeter’s brand equity, sales, and long-term growth. The Manager will develop and deliver strategic programs that align to business objectives, leveraging shopper insights, vendor partnerships, and cross-functional collaboration.

What You'll Do

• Support and develop assigned departments and directors in all marketing planning and execution activities (6-12 departments, 4-6 directors).
• Build, shape, and deliver brand enhancing strategies through:
• Program creation, development, management, and measurement that reinforce strategic pillars – this applies to yearly shopper marketing programs as well as any holiday, seasonal, and brand programs
• Activating vendors and their commitments to deliver against Harris Teeter brand strategies and company growth
• Playbook development aligned with category teams (this includes displays, signage, and communication to and with category teams and operations teams)
• Lead the brand platform and communication plans to category teams for alignment and mutual understanding.
• Responsible for leveraging shopper insights and connecting those with business objectives by analyzing insights and data from multiple sources: Circana / IRI, PowerBI, and Stratum
• Develop and execute comprehensive category marketing strategies that integrate vendor programs into cohesive, customer-focused plans supporting the overall brand vision.
• Collaborate with merchandising teams, vendors, agencies, and internal subject matter experts (digital, social, media, in-store, etc.) to deliver fully integrated programs.
• Serve as a marketing subject-matter expert to educate directors, category managers, vendors, and internal teams on marketing disciplines, category goals, and strategic objectives.
• Manage and analyze shopper marketing and grand opening budgets by accounting period (AP), ensuring accurate forecasting, tracking, and vendor billing.
• Contract and manage vendor partnerships, ensuring all documentation is accurate and complete.
• Demonstrate a strong business acumen to understand key levers that can unlock profitable growth.
• Exercise exceptional leadership skills to motivate and organize cross functional teams to deliver the objectives of both internal and external customers.
• Deliver well organized communication to company leaders regarding plans or results.
• Manage marketing for refresh, remodels, and grand openings, including pulling all marketing team and agencies together to build the best plan for the store/market that is inclusive of digital, social, media, sampling, in-store activations, guerilla, OOH, experiential, and more; work with operations to understand needs and align on plan, communicate to all key stakeholders throughout the entirety of the project, and project manage through execution.
• Supports merchandising with multi-table sampling activations that is an ongoing merchandising initiative for every week during the year
• Managing agency and timeline for the creative development process of all shopper marketing projects, category projects, and holidays; this includes ensuring timeline is accurate, understanding the business needs of category and other key departments (like pharmacy, HR, Corporate Affairs) to include in developing the creative brief for creative execution. Approve and manage artwork timelines, ensure approval from stakeholders (internal and external vendor partners) Assigns and monitors work of shopper marketing coordinator

Supporting Leadership Through the 5 Es

As a leader, you are expected to model and reinforce our leadership expectations through the 5Es Leadership Framework – serving as both an example and a multiplier of leadership impact across teams and functions:

• Envision: Craft a bold, strategic vision that aligns with the company’s direction. Communicate clearly and consistently to ensure every team understands the “why” behind the work and feels connected to the bigger picture.
• Energize: Cultivate a high-energy, resilient environment where passion, recognition, and urgency fuel momentum. Drive engagement across levels by being visible, present, and inspiring in your leadership.
• Enroll: Build alignment and commitment by involving others early and often. Create clarity around change, communicate transparently, and ensure all stakeholders feel heard, valued, and empowered to act.
• Enable: Break down barriers, advocate for necessary resources, and build capability across your teams. Champion development, empower decision-making, and foster a culture of continuous learning and ownership.
• Execute: Deliver results that matter. Turn strategy into action with prevision and agility, ensure accountability, and continuously improve outcomes through clear priorities, strong follow-through, and data-driven decisions

Qualifications - External

What You Bring

• Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Business, or related field
• 4+ years work experience in marketing or corporate merchandising, brand or retail
• Strong analytical and strategic thinking skills
• Demonstrated knowledge of brand fundamentals and retail operations
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
• Excellent communication and project management skills
• Preferred:
• Combination of brand/CPG and retail marketing
• 6+ years of cross-functional experience, with at least 3 years working across merchandising and marketing teams
• Experience with Power BI, Stratum, and/or Circana/IRI

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations will be provided, in accordance with applicable laws, to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the position.

Physical Demands

Physical demands include, but are not limited to, high aptitude for standing and walking endurance, sitting while driving to various stores, lifting and carrying up to 50 pounds, pushing and pulling climbing ladders of various types, bending, squatting, and kneeling, and working in different temperatures inside and outside the store.