Senior Manager, Category Management and Shopper Insights – Scintilla / Walmart

Kontoor Brands, Inc.•Greensboro, NC

About The Position

The Senior Manager, Category Management & Shopper Insights – Scintilla / Walmart is responsible for leading the category management, shopper insights, and retailer analytics agenda for Wrangler, with a primary focus on Walmart and Scintilla-enabled decision support. This role develops strategic alliances with internal teams and retail partners to deliver enhanced business results for Walmart and Wrangler. This leader serves as a trusted category advisor and the voice of the Walmart shopper, translating Scintilla, retailer POS, inventory, assortment, competitive, syndicated, consumer, and shopper data into fact-based recommendations that influence category strategy, assortment, merchandising, pricing, promotions, omnichannel execution, and customer planning. The ideal candidate is highly skilled at storytelling with data, presents recommendations with clarity and analytical rigor, and continuously seeks out new data sources, tools, technologies, and methods to improve the quality and impact of insights.

Requirements

Strong candidates will be detail-oriented team players with exceptional analytical capability, category management expertise, shopper insight fluency, and the ability to proactively dig into data, develop a clear story, and influence decisions that drive results.
8–10+ years of related professional experience in category management, shopper insights, consumer insights, retail analytics, sales strategy, customer analytics, or commercial analytics.
Walmart and Scintilla experience strongly preferred; hands-on experience with Walmart data environments such as Scintilla, Retail Link/Luminate, or equivalent retailer- specific platforms preferred.
Power user with syndicated market data and shopper/consumer data sources such as Circana/NPD/IRI, Nielsen,
Prior retail, CPG, apparel, mass merchant, or omnichannel category management experience preferred.
Expertise in category management and retail business math, including sales, share, margin, velocity, distribution, inventory, sell-through, productivity, pricing, promotion, and assortment metrics.
Strong quantitative analysis capabilities with ability to synthesize findings, identify root causes, quantify opportunities, and recommend practical actions.
Excellent presentation skills, including executive-level PowerPoint storytelling and retailer-ready selling stories.
Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to translate complex analyses into simple, persuasive narratives.
Strong interpersonal and influencing skills with ability to build trust across Sales, Marketing, Product, Supply Chain, Analytics, leadership, and customer teams.
Ability to take initiative, drive results, manage change, improve processes, and lead work across multiple stakeholders and deadlines.
Strong computer and analytics skills required, including Excel, PowerPoint, data management software, dashboards.
Results-oriented with passion for achieving business outcomes and improving category performance.
Bachelor’s degree required; preferred fields include Business, Marketing, Data Analytics, Economics, Statistics, Computer Science, or related discipline.
Advanced degree, MBA, or relevant analytics/category management certification highly desirable.
Experience with retailer, syndicated, BI, visualization, and presentation tools required.

Nice To Haves

Scintilla/Walmart analytics and ability to integrate retailer, POS, syndicated, competitive, and internal data sources.
Category management leadership and retail marketplace strategy.
Shopper insights, path-to-purchase thinking, and consumer/shopper behavior interpretation.
Advanced analytical thinking, quantitative problem solving, and business math.
Executive and customer-facing storytelling with data.
Omnichannel mindset across physical and digital retail environments.
Influence, stakeholder management, and trusted advisor relationship-building.
Initiative, ownership, and ability to proactively identify insights and opportunities.
Process improvement, change management, and project prioritization.
Presentation development, dashboard interpretation, scorecarding, and performance reporting.
Leadership, coaching, collaboration, and ability to elevate analytical capability across teams.

Responsibilities

Lead Wrangler and Walmart category management activities.
Serve as an internal and external thought leader on Walmart shopper dynamics, retail trends, competitive activity, and evolving physical and digital shopping behaviors.
Develop holistic omnichannel category strategies that connect shopper behavior, category performance, competitive dynamics, brand priorities, and retailer strategies.
Identify whitespace opportunities, assortment gaps, competitive threats, and commercial growth levers using internal, industry, retailer-specific, and syndicated data sources.
Define category growth platforms and strategic recommendations that support line reviews, Joint Business Planning, QBRs, annual planning, and customer strategy discussions.
Leverage Scintilla and related retailer data environments, combined with other data sources, such as Circana, or PlacerAI, internal sales data, customer information, and other sources, to build holistic category and shopper insights.
Analyze POS, inventory, sell-through, distribution, market share, pricing, promotions, assortment productivity, shopper behavior, demographics, market trends, and competitive performance for Wrangler.
Translate large and complex data sets into clear findings, root-cause explanations, quantified opportunities, and action-oriented recommendations.
Continuously seek, learn, and actively use new data sources, tools, technologies, and analytical methods to improve speed, rigor, and business impact.
Partner with Sales, Category Management, Marketing, Product, Supply Chain, and Analytics teams to align Walmart category strategies with Wrangler business objectives and execution plans.
Develop fact-based assortment, planogram, adjacency, space allocation, merchandising, and activation recommendations that grow both the category and Wrangler’s business.
Support physical and digital shelf strategy by identifying opportunities to improve visibility, navigation, conversion, and productivity across Walmart channels.
Evaluate promotional effectiveness, seasonal programs, in-market tests, display performance, and other initiatives to generate future recommendations.
Influence decision-making through objective, fact-based recommendations while building credibility as a trusted advisor to both Walmart merchants and internal Wrangler leadership.
Support Account Executives and customer teams in preparing for and delivering retailer-facing presentations, including line reviews, JBPs, QBRs, and strategic planning sessions.
Build influential selling stories through PowerPoint, dashboards, scorecards, and executive-ready presentations for internal stakeholders, sales teams, and external retail customers.
Design and deliver best-in-class monthly, quarterly, and annual Category, Channel, Customer Business Reviews, and performance scorecards.
Drive process improvements, reporting standards, and repeatable analytical approaches that elevate category management capability across the organization.
Manage change effectively, prioritize work based on business value, and balance speed, accuracy, rigor, and stakeholder needs.
Promote a culture of curiosity, accountability, analytical excellence, and shopper-centric decision making.