Category Manager

California Dairies Inc • Dublin, CA

22h • Onsite

About The Position

The Category Manager works closely with the Retail Sales Team, Marketing Team, and Finance & Accounting teams to drive sales, purchases, and profitability. As a strategic partner to top customers, the Category Manager is responsible for providing fact-based, insight-led, and actionable category solutions to drive growth for the category, customer, and company. The Category Manager acts as a thought-leader using consumer and data trends to provide value-creating business solutions regarding category assortment, merchandising, shelving, pricing, and promotion. The role has close collaboration with both internal & external partners. The position requires proficiency in following the company values of cooperation, integrity, work ethic, decisiveness, and agility.

Requirements

• Ability to adapt to changing conditions and demands.
• Ability to handle multiple priorities.
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to interface with all levels of the organization as well as external customers.
• Excellent verbal, written, and social communication skills.
• Ability to work under pressure with minimal or no supervision.
• Ability to travel to Retailer and key trade events (20% travel)
• Detail oriented and deep understanding of key category management.
• Exceptional leadership, motivational, and team management skills.
• Proven ability to develop teams to the next level.
• Strategic thinking and analytical skills with the proven ability to translate data into insights and actions.
• Possess strong communication and organizational skills.
• Strong Microsoft skills required.
• Enjoy independent responsibility.
• Self-motivated and able to execute independently.
• Emotional intelligence.
• Travel required for in-person meetings as needed.
• Team player with excellent collaboration skills.
• High level of integrity and dependability with strong sense of urgency and results-orientation.
• Highly proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (especially Excel and PowerPoint)
• Strong financial acumen, attention to detail, time management and problem-solving skills
• Ability to collaborate across multiple departments and levels of the organization.
• Must demonstrate good judgement when carrying out duties as assigned.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, or equivalent work experience required.
• 7+ years progressive experience working in an insights capacity; category / shopper/retailer-facing experience a must, CPG experience preferred
• Deep fluency in shopper panel (Numerator preferred), syndicated and retailer data
• Demonstrated success translating insights into measurable commercial impact
• Experience designing and leading large-scale research initiatives
• Strong retail and business acumen with ability to identify opportunities that drive growth in a retail environment
• English is required as the written and spoken language.

Nice To Haves

• CMA certification preferred

Responsibilities

• Define and own the multi-year Category Insights learning agenda aligned to enterprise growth priorities
• Identify high-value opportunities across channels and retailers by synthesizing primary research, panel data, and syndicated sources
• Translate shopper behavior and category trends into clear commercial implications that drive distribution, velocity, and basket expansion
• Serve as a category thought leader, elevating CDI’s credibility with retail partners through insight-led selling
• Integrate diverse data streams (primary, shopper, panel, syndicated, and retailer data) into cohesive, action-oriented narratives
• Establish frameworks and standardized approaches for Category trend mapping, segmentation, and opportunity sizing
• Build scalable tools and ways of working that embed shopper thinking into the Sales organization
• Champion disciplined, hypothesis-led analytics that move beyond diagnosis to business opportunities to test and learn
• Craft stakeholder-ready, insight-driven stories that drive clarity and inspire action among senior leaders and decision-makers
• Connect macro trends, category dynamics, and shopper motivations into growth opportunities and narratives
• Simplify complexity into intuitive visualizations and clear business implications tailored to diverse audiences
• Equip Sales teams with compelling, insight-backed selling stories that unlock incremental retailer opportunity
• Act as the voice of the category expert in preparation for key customer engagements and internal strategy discussions
• Elevate organizational fluency in category analytics through education, frameworks, and repeatable tools
• Build and manage external research partners to deliver high-impact learning efficiently and effectively
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Benefits

• The company will make reasonable accommodations that do not cause an undue hardship if such an accommodation enables individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the position.
• The Company will make reasonable accommodations in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act.
• The Company is an equal employment opportunity employer.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior