Category Manager - Various Categories (remote)

YOUR CONTRIBUTION:

• Build category vision and strategic roadmap; energize and inspire the organization to bring the category vision to life.
• Stay deeply connected with customers, consumers and emerging trends to anticipate current and future wants and needs.
• Analyze the business landscape and competitive context to identify opportunities and gaps, modify growth strategies and recommend corrective actions to meet or exceed category business objectives.
• Establish strategic and executional priorities for the category, steward cross-functional leadership, enable and empower others to bring the category strategy and priorities to life.
• Collaborate with sales, marketing, food application and supply chain team to develop core ingredient & product application platforms across sales channels.
• Define and measure winning in the category; accountable for in-market performance tracking on an ongoing basis and making necessary changes quickly to maximize the category performance.
• Lead product strategy and category positioning to meet changing consumer needs and enhance value proposition; ensure the product category & animal free ingredient application systems are optimized for consumer and customer relevance, and profitable growth across all segments.
• Drive the innovation agenda, new product pipeline and prioritization for the category based on in-depth category knowledge and consumer insights. Oversee the cross-functional implementation of NPD projects from concept to launch.
• Partner with Marketing Communications (“marketing”) on the development of inspired marketing plans that guide the right balance of long-term brand development and achieving category business goals.
• Partner with Sales in developing the sales tools that support the selling process; participate in customer calls/market visits to monitor product performance and to identify improvement opportunities to move the business forward.
• Partner with Sales and Finance to develop pricing strategies based on understanding of category price elasticity and competitive pricing and deliver plans through active P&L management for the category.
• Collaborate with the Strategy team on short, medium- and long-term plans to optimize for the overall P&L performance of the business and appropriately prioritize resource with other category manager peers.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

• MBA or equivalent with experience in food & beverage industry.
• Our ideal candidate needs to have over 8-10 years of experience supporting and/or leading B2B food ingredient sales and/or business development teams.
• Experience managing a $25M+ P&L.
• Command of innovation and commercialization processes.
• Experience delivering presentations to customers & executives.
• Experience in analyzing primary and secondary research, digesting the information, and leveraging it for use in sales presentations and for product marketing decisions.
• Experience managing a team of direct reports and cross-functional teams.
• Understanding of the following areas: manufacturing, packaging, contract manufacturing, partnerships, B2B marketing, sales, budgeting & P&L.
• Excellent communication skills, with experience in managing complex, cross-functional projects.
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills.
• Total fluency in MS Office applications, especially Excel & PowerPoint.
• Build and maintain relationships with decision-makers and influencers in companies within your book of business