SVP, Category & Insights

Red Bull•Santa Monica, CA

About The Position

The Senior Vice President of Category & Insights is responsible for leading the development of Red Bull’s category management and customer and business insights strategies to ensure that Red Bull is seen as the thought leader both externally, in pursuit of selling opportunities with our retail partners, and internally throughout the business planning process with our category and account management teams. The end goal is to provide our employees and customers with cutting-edge analysis, research, reporting, tools and insights that lead to best-in-class promotion, distribution, and merchandising. The SVP of Category will lead the following teams: Shopper & Category Insights, Space Planning & Assortment, and Category Management for National Accounts and Regional Accounts across all channels of business. An excellent grasp of the tools necessary for field sales to be successful; an intuitive knowledge of the key metrics required to properly analyze business performance; both customer and HQ experience and a proven track record of leadership and team building is required. Externally, we strive to be the only reasonable choice when retailers decide on a thought partner across Total Non-Alcoholic Beverages and within Energy Drinks. Internally, we have our fingerprints on all phases on the Red Bull selling process: from insight-led sales priorities, channel playbooks for business plan implementation, collaborative CMA selling stories and management of systems to measure success and inform new opportunities.

Requirements

12+ Years work experience in CPG/FMCG, Beverage industry Category Management preferred
4+ years of experience in Sales/Category Management, preferably within CPG/Beverage
4+ years of experience in Shopper Insights, preferably within CPG/Beverage
Experience in Space Planning and Category Assortment, preferable within CPG/Beverage
Broad knowledge of CPG industry sources and uses, vendors and their tools and capabilities including, but not limited to: Syndicated sales data (Circana, Nielsen etc.), shopper panel data (Numerator, etc.), loyalty card, custom research (Field Agent, etc)
Ability to connect disparate data sources, interpret analysis results, formulate recommendations, develop impactful presentations, and present to broad audiences.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a proven track record of turning insights into actionable selling tactics
Experience in people management and people development
Strong customer-service aptitude

Responsibilities

Develop long-term category strategies and specific initiatives considering company direction, focus area, key customers, market parameters and resources
Aggregate and analyze large amounts of complex data quickly, and distill that data into clear, viable action plans
Allocate resources where the investment has the highest payback and with regions or customers with strategic importance/relevance
Drive the insights for the annual business planning process for sales team, channel programs, and initiatives
Utilize current insights resources to anticipate business needs and uncover sales opportunities, guide the annual business planning process, and provide leading-edge Category Management solutions across all channels of trade
Build strong external relationships with key retailer Executives, especially where Red Bull holds Captaincy
Mine internal and external data to analyze the category, Brand, and consumer/shopper dynamics to maximize sales effectiveness in Distribution, Pricing, Promotion, and Merchandising
Identifies opportunity gaps and provides strategies to close gaps
Foster strong internal partnerships with cross-functional team leadership (Shopper Insights, Shopper Marketing, Data Science) to inform and create effective retailer Category solutions
Provide timely thought leadership to sales leaders and retailer decision makers from space, shopper, and category insights
Be sought after and trusted by retailer partners in key decision moments
Negotiate retailer-specific data platform offerings and ensure these tools are leveraged for category and brand growth
Leverage multiple data sources to present compelling insights that drive annual selling strategies and go-to-market initiatives internally and in top-to-top retailer meetings.
Drive Red Bull space planning methodology and process proposed to key retailers to win captaincy designation.
Partner with sales teams to identify, prioritize, and plan the retailers best suited for Red Bull category captaincy.
Ensure the team leverages the latest shopper and category insights to develop annual planogram standards, consults product marketing on advanced assortment analytics, and informs Global category space planning training efforts.
Develop and train Red Bull Global category space planning modules for international market use
Oversee the management of the current category and shopper insights content suite across all insight sources with a continuous improvement mindset for content and delivery.
Provide direction on our relationship with the dedicated IRI team and Numerator dedicated partners, ensuring seamless monthly delivery of accurate data and efficient use of use of resources
Ensure that our approach to database design across all data sources is evolving with beverage, shopper, and retail trends
Works with industry thought leaders (Kantar Retail, Mintel, Euromonitor, etc) to inform and influence their research and direction on the energy and other beverage categories
Evaluate team decisions to acquire and manage tactical vendors: planogram software and efficiency tools, product libraries, and planogram services, including but not limited to: JDA/Blue Yonder, SMSB, and others.