Team Lead Cat Advisor Club

The Hershey Company•Bentonville, AR

5d•Onsite

About The Position

Position leads the Hershey Category Advisor Team for Sam’s Club. This is a Player/Coach role responsible for deliverables to Sam’s Club as well as coaching the Sam’s Club Advisor team. The role will deliver analysis and solutions in the categories that Hershey participates inclusive of Candy, Gum, Mint, Salty Snacks, and the Protein portfolio. Additionally, advise on total consumables inclusive of product, pricing, promotion, placement, timing, macro space planning, and adjacencies. Coach a team of Category Advisor professionals and actively contribute to, advise the customer, and develop strategies and solutions to enable growth as the best-in-class indispensable consultative partner. Key areas of thought leadership and focus include: Everyday & Seasonal Candy, Gum, Mints, Salty Snacks, protein portfolio, as well as a strong understanding of all snack wheel categories. This includes thought leadership on macro space planning, shopper insights, optimizing finite spaces through category and assortment and inventory planning. Driving category conversion through online, pickup, Scan & Go, and delivery, and DSV strategy. Further develop and elevate relationships with key stakeholders at the retailer while driving category strategy, planning, and delivering solutions to drive growth. Development should include merchants, VP DMM, Operations, and Supply Chain. Continuously evaluate and update the customer segmentation and allocate resources to maximize influence to drive key metrics. Set the strategic vision and JBP priorities with the customer along with SMART goals for the team. Ensure the team is focused on the execution of analytical and strategic work which result in top-line sales and profitable growth; Focus on distribution, space, capabilities expansion and optimization. Support and assist with building strategic customer plans. Execute and deliver continual test and learn opportunities to evolve and grow the candy and snacking category. Maintain accountability for growing sustainably and profitability. Lead a team with responsibility for Category Advisor activities with Sam’s Club; Support team members and assist with delivering key projects; Recruit, train, develop, and coach for performance in order to develop and maintain a high-performance team. Utilize the performance management process to manage and motivate a high-performance Category Advisor team. Consult and share best practices for international Sam’s Club teams as needed, primarily focused on Mexico and Puerto Rico, but may also include China and Brazil.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree Required
Minimum 7 years experience
progressive professional experience with: 5+ yrs Consumer product sales & strong analytical experience and results
experience in Category Management
additional functional and general management experience a plus
extensive knowledge of assortment planning, JDA space planning, Scintilla, Circana, Nielsen, Madrid, Numerator, Power BI, Seasonal Order Writing, multi customer and class of trade experience a plus
strong track record of hiring, managing, and developing a high-performance team
setting a strategic vision
executing SMART team goals

Nice To Haves

MBA preferred

Responsibilities

Achieves sales and share targets by managing and coaching a team.
Facilitates communication and action between the sales, retail, supply chain teams and key decision makers at the customer.
Develops the analytical frameworks by which the Category Advisor team generates category growth solutions.
Manage business by understanding and coaching: Syndicated and panel data analysis, Plan-o-Gram optimization, Joint Business Planning, the Business Development planning process, development of quantitatively supported best demonstrated category practices.
Deliver proactive solutions to drive total Club optimization and productivity across both the physical and digital spaces
Leverage member insights to support holistic omni channel solutions
Research, evaluate, hypothesize, Test and Learn, to evolve all areas of the club that we compete in
Develop non-compete vendor community relationships.
Create and maintain tools to evaluate, analyze, and identify opportunities for Hershey and the customer
Utilize the performance management process to coach and develop team members throughout the year, through the effective use of the performance appraisal process and performance records.
Handle administrative duties: Weekly T&E expense reports, Performance management, yearly input to budgeting process.
Develop customer relationships cross functionally to include but not limited to merchandising, replenishment, space management, digital, IT, space planning, design, operations
Utilize the Internal Selection and Succession process to fill openings in a timely manner.
Prepare and maintain bench strength to contribute to the Hershey Company talent pool.
Continuous learning of new trends, technologies, and insights that can be used to advance the category and drive customer conversion & experience
Leverage business intelligence tools like Planet Retail and Cleveland Research.
Develop a deep understanding of market place trends inside and outside of the channel