Category Manager

This should include interpreting shopper and category insights, optimizing product assortment, evaluating product placement, and proposing solutions to improve overall category performance. Serve as the Category Management expert and advisor to leadership. Influence decisions makers by reviewing and analyzing shelf space opportunities, as well as current business trends and category performance within the market and industry. Responsible for leading and delivering space management projects for all assigned customers. Proactively communicating and working with Account Sales Team, Brands, Business Units, and RGM on assortment opportunities, including void closures, at risk items, innovation, and core assortment Build and maintain long-term relationships with assigned retailers. Leverage insights and recommend action plans for assigned retailers by developing persuasive fact-based sales presentations that leverage customer, industry, market and competitive information Maintain frequent and fluid communication with internal and external stake holders regarding projects, insights, and/or opportunities, for self and for the team. Build and maintain reporting, as well as communicate findings gleaned from them. Other duties as assigned. Ability to proactively identify needs and opportunities, then establish a plan to meet those needs. Ability to effectively create and implement programs for area of responsibility. Collaborative and able to align with internal and external stakeholders. Curious and willing to investigate root causes of in market performance results. Bachelor's Degree in Sales, Marketing or Business related field. Ideal candidate will possess: 5+ years of customer facing experience in the CPG industry and Category Management. Grocery and Mass channel experience is preferred. Strong problem solving and analytical skills. Proven experience converting data into logical, actionable strategies. Effective written and verbal communication skills. Comfortable presenting to Customers and Senior Executives. Highly motivated self-starter with strong project management skills, capable of multi-tasking in a matrix organization. Thorough understanding of POS and Panel data, and experience with retailer shopper card data sets. Experience managing people, including the creation of development plans and defining accountabilities. Strong working knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite of products, i.e. Excel and PowerPoint, and of space management software, i.e. JDA or Apollo. Travel up to 20%