Global VP, Category Strategy (Mars Snacking)

Mars•Chicago, IL

2d•$252,000 - $346,500•Hybrid

About The Position

Mars Snacking’s vision is to create Better Snacks for Better Days, with a clear One Demand vision at the heart of it. As we bring together an expanded and more comprehensive snacking portfolio, this role exists to define, lead and orchestrate a future-proof Category Vision and Strategy—deeply insight-led, digitally enabled, and technologically scaled—to drive superior category and customer growth. As Global VP, Category Leadership, you will set and drive the global category growth vision and strategy, turning consumer, shopper, and market insights into winning category strategies and plans that accelerate category growth, share, revenue, and profitability across regions and channels. You will act as the global subject-matter expert in category capabilities and lead a high-performing global category leadership team, partnering closely with Commercial/Sales, Marketing, Strategic Revenue Management (SRM). You will help shape the agenda of the ‘Integrated Intelligence’ function to ensure category and shopper remain at the center of our business and you will also own the Strategic Perfect Store program, developing strategies, methodologies, tools and capabilities to unlock winning Mars Snacking execution at point of purchase.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive experience in Category Management/Category Leadership, Shopper Marketing, Commercial Strategy, or RGM within CPG; snacking/food/beverage experience strongly preferred.
International experience in different geographies, working across cultures, different markets, prior experience in managing different trade development and structures & multiple channels.
Proven senior leadership experience building and leading global and/or multi-region teams in a matrix organization.
Demonstrated track record of driving category and commercial outcomes (share growth, distribution gains, improved promo ROI, margin expansion) with major retailers and eCommerce customers.
Deep expertise in syndicated and shopper data (e.g., NielsenIQ/IRI), retailer POS, and category analytics; ability to translate analysis into simple, compelling selling stories.
Strong understanding of the end-to-end commercial system: pricing architecture, promotion strategy, assortment, merchandising, and trade terms.
Comfort influencing C-suite and customer executives; strong executive presence and negotiation skills.
Bachelor’s degree required (Business, Marketing, Economics, Analytics or similar)

Nice To Haves

MBA or advanced degree preferred.

Responsibilities

Define and own the Global Category Vision - Define the category vision, growth choices (by need-state, occasion, format, and channel, and 3–5 year roadmap, to fully reflect a technology‑enabled, data‑driven, omni‑category future, incorporating new sub‑categories, emerging consumption moments, and external trends across channels. translate into annual priorities and measurable OKRs.
Engage and inspire stakeholders across the organization: Engage all stakeholders and deploy the vision effectively across 30+ markets globally so that it drives our strategies, wins more customer partnerships and most importantly delivers mutual category growth.
Partner with Marketing/Portfolio/R&D Teams to evolve the Demand Map using integrated data, analytics, and scenario modelling, ensuring holistic, One Demand‑aligned choices that inform activation, innovation, and communication.
Innovation and pipeline shaping: Partner with Brand, R&D, and Strategy to identify whitespace, write insight-led innovation briefs, and validate concepts/price-pack architecture through testing.
Utilize relevant metrics and measures to drive visibility of Category Leadership contribution and to hold stakeholders accountable for delivery of Category Leadership strategies and Category growth.
Build and own a ‘Store of Future’ vision - partnering with Integrated Intelligence to leverage customer, shopper, and behavioral data—combined with advanced analytics—to create an omnichannel, omni‑category vision of the Store of the Future, grounded in the evolved Category Vision.
Own the Display Strategic Display framework and toolkits/assets - build leading expertise in Transaction Zone/Approach Zone, main aisle, secondary display and translate into capability assets to unlock winning execution for Mars in our key markets globally.
Elevate in-store and digital execution: Establish best-in-class merchandising standards (shelf, secondary displays, seasonal, cross-merchandising) and eCommerce content/search/shelving principles; create scalable playbooks for regions.
Own the Category Leadership and Perfect Store Digitalization Strategy - create advanced category intelligence tools, embedding analytics, automation, and digital technologies. These tools would have the objective to quantify Category Vision choices with precision, enable dynamic/fact‑based planning and decision‑making, and translate moments by brand, channel, and customer into scalable activation frameworks.
Drive a step‑change in category capability (measured Globally via Advantage Group Trade Attitude Survey) by defining a future‑back capability roadmap, prioritizing digital fluency, analytics adoption, and tech‑enabled ways of working through targeted interventions with regions and markets.
Customer-facing category leadership: Serve as a senior thought partner to top global and regional retailers, delivering compelling category stories, joint business planning inputs, and growth pilots.
Global-to-local operating model: Build clear ways of working across global and regions (cadence, templates, governance) to ensure consistency while enabling local adaptation.
Performance management: Build a maintain a Performance culture - Create dashboards to track category KPIs (share, penetration, velocity, distribution, price index, promo ROI, shelf health); diagnose issues and drive corrective actions.
Team leadership: Hire, coach, and develop diverse talent; build analytical, storytelling, and influence capabilities; create succession pipelines.