Director of Category Management
Our client is looking for a Director, Retail Category Management to lead the category management and merchandising team for their 250 store chain, responsible for the development and execution of merchandising strategies across all categories in order to achieve short- and long-term financial goals (sales, margin, and profitability). Reporting to the SVP Sales, Marketing & Innovation, the Director will lead a team of Senior Category Managers, our Pricebook team, and will also be responsible for managing one key category (tobacco, alcohol, packaged beverage, general merchandise, or foodservice).
The ideal Director, Category Management must have extensive experience in understanding consumer, product, and market insights to drive development of annual and seasonal merchandising strategies, driving the total financial merchandising plans, and delivering highly relevant assortments in a fast-paced retail environment. As a key leader in the organization, this individual will drive team culture through a customer first mind-set, fostering cross-functional team collaboration, developing category management and pricebook talent, and supporting the continuous evolution of business processes to maximize resources. Exceptional written and verbal communication skills are an absolute must.
Role & Responsibilities:
Identify and develop merchandise product categories that resonate with our customer, and understand the business levers to utilize in order to drive customer satisfaction, incremental sales, margin and overall growth across customer touchpoints and channels.
Analyze and utilize consumer, transactional, market, and industry data to guide merchandising and pricing strategies.
Collaborate with cross-functional leaders to drive the client’s strategic objectives and achieve organizational metrics.
Strong supplier and distributor relationship management skills to achieve key business objectives
Partner with marketing, loyalty, and innovation team in the development of innovative omni channel campaign strategies that drive traffic, build baskets, and drive conversion and sales.
Lead ongoing assessment of the product category mix by identifying opportunities and downward trends as well as expanding into new categories and services.
Lead team in ongoing competitive shopping and research to identify new and emerging relevant trends and translate into current and future business plans.
Mentor, train and develop the category management and pricebook teams.
Create a strategic succession plan. Provide support, feedback and coaching to build future leaders.
Partner with store operations to support the execution of merchandising plans
Required Qualifications – Education, Skills & Experience:
4-year undergraduate degree in business or other related field
Experience querying, understanding, and interpreting BI platform outputs
Example: Qlik, Tableau, Power BI or equivalent
Extensive proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite
Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Superior analytical skills
Track-record of successfully developing/implementing fact-based strategic decisions, managing execution and measuring results
Salary commensurate with experience, corporate bonus, benefits, HSA, 401K, SARs and more.
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