Category Development Manager

Red Bull•Santa Monica, CA

5h•Onsite

About The Position

The Category Manager directly supports the Director of Category Development in building consumer- and customer-focused strategies, tactics, and category-grounded solutions. This individual will conduct high-quality analysis and synthesize multiple data sources to generate insights and actionable recommendations, while leveraging effective communication and influencing skills to orchestrate action across national small format customers. The candidate must possess sound business judgment, excellent communication skills, and demonstrated experience in the following areas: assortment planning, negotiation, pricing strategy, online product presentation, sales, and building productive relationships.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Management, Accounting, Data Analytics, or a related field preferred.
A minimum of 3–5 years of experience in consumer goods, retail, or syndicated data, with a focus on category management, sales, business analytics, and/or shopper insights.
Extensive experience understanding, utilizing, and employing syndicated data, customer card/POS data, and panel data to drive internal and external wins through sales and share growth.
Ability to distill complex data into simple stories.
Demonstrated ability to build indispensable, collaborative partnerships with retail customers and internal business partners across functional teams.
Highly skilled in Microsoft Office Suite, including Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
Exceptional communication skills, including verbal, written, and presentation skills.
Strong planning and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
Working knowledge of retail merchandising and in-store execution tactics.

Nice To Haves

Experience with data sources such as Nielsen, Circana, NPD, Numerator, 84.51, dunnhumby, SPINS, Stratum, Spectra/demographics, SPSOneScreen, and Symphony Retail AI/EYC preferred.
CPCM certification, Certified Professional Category Manager, and/or Master’s degree preferred.
Experience in sales and/or analytical sales support, including driving face-to-face dialogue and initiatives, preferred.
Additional experience managing relationships with third-party agencies, including brokers and data and insight providers, preferred.
Experience in beverages DSD is strongly preferred.
Additional analytical experience and competencies, including Tableau, Microsoft Access, Power BI, ProSpace, SQL, VBA, and Alteryx, preferred.

Responsibilities

Develop and cultivate business relationships with external retailer contacts that establish RBNA as the indispensable partner for all category management needs.
Build comprehensive knowledge of the products, attributes, strategies, tactics, and competitive trends in the marketplace for assigned categories online and offline.
Oversee the development and execution of online and offline assortment and merchandising optimization, new product introductions, seasonal programs, and pricing/promotional planning and evaluation.
Leverage data from multiple sources to create impactful analytics and selling stories that identify risks, opportunities, and performance gaps, including distribution, assortment mix, incrementality, size, shelving, and placement.
Employ critical thinking and problem-solving skills to recognize and anticipate issues and opportunities by elevating analyses beyond reporting and translating insights into retail action.
Work effectively with Sales, Marketing, Shopper Marketing, Shopper and Consumer Insights, Brand, eCommerce, and other Category Leadership resources to establish, lead, and maintain performance management, including streamlining reporting cadences, macro assessments, and opportunity gap analysis.
Guide the execution of Red Bull Category Management resources to provide solutions that establish strategic plans for assigned Customer Teams.
Implement category development programs by leading dialogue with retailers focused on category growth opportunities.
Facilitate the customer business planning process by integrating with overall strategic business goals.
Turn insights into actions by executing, analyzing, and evaluating category plans and identifying key opportunities for Red Bull and retailers to capitalize on.
Present Red Bull’s category credentials to key retailers in a compelling manner.
Develop an unassailable level of Energy Category and broader beverage insights.
Provide leading-edge category management solutions by utilizing and understanding IRI and Nielsen syndicated scanning data, household panel data, market demographic data, customer point-of-sale data, loyalty data, and systems used to generate information for category reviews.
Create, develop, and deliver regular category reviews, plans, and strategies with retailer partners.
Provide business analysis and insights on sales, pricing, and opportunity gaps for incremental volume.
Manage planogram creation and the store-level roundtable process for retailers, ensuring best-in-class category execution.
Deliver analysis on new item introductions and performance.
Provide new product and package mix analysis.
Develop analysis to highlight merchandising effectiveness, including display and promotion effectiveness.
Maintain and develop regular internal and retailer-specific scorecards and trackers.
Provide ad hoc category management reporting, trend analysis, customized reports, and special project work directly to internal and external leaders as necessary.
Stay current on developments and best practices in Category Management, pursuing the knowledge needed to improve departmental capabilities and professional agility.