Director, Category Leadership - Kroger

This role will be responsible for leading category management work supporting Kroger.  This individual will identify, articulate, and commercialize key category growth strategies and tactics via effective storytelling to maximize the retailers’ category growth potential while creating value for Coca-Cola.  Key deliverables include opportunity assessment, beverage strategy development as part of a category blueprint, shopper insights, and assortment recommendations.

Position Responsibilities

• Makes strategic and tactical beverage recommendations by leveraging unique insights from POS, panel data, as well as other industry sources

• Ensures alignment between retailer and Coca-Cola strategic priorities

• Influences customer decision-making by building relationships with senior executives to collaboratively build strategies and tactics designed for future category growth

• Stewards development & implementation of process for sharing best practices, as well as sharing specific retailer shopper and category insights within Coca-Cola to drive/shape future corporate strategy

• Leads interaction with cross-functional leads to address key business questions and develop volume and revenue growth strategies that allow both companies to meet and exceed plan expectations

• Ensures that category management tools, data, and shopper insights are effectively leveraged to grow distribution, space, and optimized assortment for all beverage categories

• Creates and maintains partnership with Sales Leads to become indispensable category partners with retailers

• Prepares and makes presentations, including market and industry trends, SWOT, competitive review, assortment, and category reviews

• Collaborates with Shopper Insights and apply the learnings to identify customer & sales growth opportunities. Lead the delivery of the shopper insights facts & proposed action to the customer.

• Collaborates with Space Strategy team members to develop plans for the placement of company’s products through recommended schematics and points of availability. Lead the delivery of space strategy plans & proposed action to the customer.

KEY FOCUS AREAS

Strategic Thinking and Strategy Development:

• Develops and drives Coca-Cola strategic processes and plans

• Partners in the development of annual business plan; drive category strategy and opportunities; ensure plan has a relevant category strategy which will win in the marketplace

• Delivers impartial and objective total store and beverage solutions for the retailer through masterful storytelling providing differentiated, timely, relevant, and actionable insights

• Provides leadership & continued stewardship for retailer’s beverage categories (Sparkling, Still and Warehouse)

• Recommends space opportunities and risks for the beverage category

• Partners with Sales Teams in development of retailer account plans and programs to drive Coca-Cola market share

• Leads the annual customer category situation assessment process

Project Management:

• Provides leadership to a team of experts (within the customer team) across cross-functional teams to create dialogue via fact-based insights and actionable business analytics

• Develops and inspires a cross functional team towards building effective category growth recommendations focused on the customer’s needs and strategic priorities

Relationship Management:

• Develops solid working relationships with key retailer category managers and Coca-Cola bottlers to drive NARTD beverages into all aspects of their shopper engagement strategy in-store

• Cultivates relationships within retailer’s merchandising team and throughout the broader organization (i.e. retailer’s insights and analytics teams)

EDUCATION:  Minimum Required Bachelor’s Degree Preferred:  MBA or other graduate degree

EXPERIENCE

Minimum Required: 

• 5+ Years in CPG Industry

• Senior level experience within the consumer goods/beverages industry

• Strong knowledge of category management principles and analytic techniques

Preferred Level:

• 8+ Years in CPG Industry

• Experience across multiple disciplines beyond category management (Shopper Insights, Revenue Growth Management, etc)

SKILLS

• Advanced analytical capability

• Experience leveraging customer specific data sources (84.51, Stratum, Market6)

• Strong working knowledge of syndicated data (Nielsen, Circana, Numerator)

• High technical skill and aptitude with computer software (MS Office, JDA, Power BI, etc.)

• Ability to utilize/manipulate/manage large data sets

• Demonstrated reputation for customer engagement with ability to positively drive business results

• Ability to link category leadership strategies to customer strategies

• Analytics experience – ability to draw insights and actions from data

• Planning experience – strategic thinking, forward looking, inherent sense of urgency

• Ability to translate analytics into actions and results

• Proven oral and written communication, storytelling, and influencing skills

• Ability to manage and prioritize multiple projects and assignments

• Insatiable curiosity, proactive engagement internally and externally, and willingness to respectfully challenge conventional thinking

Travel: 10-20%

Location: Cincinnati, OH