Sr Category Strategy & Innovation Manager

Kroger • Cincinnati, OH

5d

About The Position

Lead growth across assigned categories within the Our Brands private label portfolio. Serve as the central business partner for Our Brands category strategy, innovation, and development, driving consumer‑led, breakthrough innovation through a deep understanding of unmet needs and emerging trends. Partner cross‑functionally to guide product development, category strategy, and business planning, ensuring alignment with merchandising priorities and the Customer First Promise. Manage external partners to deliver best‑in-class results and lead enterprise-level initiatives spanning multiple categories and brands. Communicate Private Label vision, goals, and budgets, and demonstrate strong expertise in category financials, consumer insights, and the retail marketplace. Demonstrate the company’s core values of respect, honesty, integrity, diversity, inclusion, and safety.

Requirements

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in business administration or related field
• 5-7 years of related experience
• Experience as a category manager, senior category manager, or brand manager
• Proven ability to drive sales, volume, and profitability through application of competitive, consumer, innovation, and business insights
• Demonstrated experience identifying and developing product concepts that enhance portfolio value, brand equity, loyalty, and advocacy
• Strong partnership capability with Merchandising to develop and execute short ‑ and long ‑ term category strategies
• Experience collaborating with cross ‑ functional teams (e.g., category strategy, branding, innovation) to ensure alignment with business objectives
• Excellent strategic thinking, problem ‑ solving, and decision ‑ making skills in fast ‑ paced, ambiguous environments
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to present recommendations to leadership

Nice To Haves

• Advanced degree
• Experience leading private label or owned ‑ brand portfolios within large ‑ scale retail or CPG organizations

Responsibilities

• Drive Our Brands sales, volume and profit by applying knowledge of competitive set, consumer trends, innovation and business needs
• Discover new pathways in the form of product ideas that build the Our Brands portfolio with heightened cache, increased perceived value, deepened loyalty and greater advocacy
• Partner with Merchandising to build both long- and short-term strategic plans to drive category growth and profitability
• Provide input to Our Brands functional teams, such as category strategy managers and branding, to ensure respective plans support business needs
• Utilize traditional and non-traditional data sources for competitive and consumer behavior intelligence
• Move projects into and through the ideation process to the development process
• Shape food knowledge across departments through food, cultural and ethnic, category and product trends; incorporate the information into Our Brands business plans
• Supervise and coach direct reports in the performance of their duties; complete performance reviews and provide feedback to direct
• Provide pre-commercialization assessments to support the further development of incubator ideas and identify critical high pay-off strategies
• Supervise and coach direct reports in the performance of their duties; complete performance reviews and provide feedback to direct reports
• Must be able to perform the essential functions of this position with or without reasonable accommodation

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees