Director, Category Management - Grocery

Job Description :

Director Category Development –Grocery and Regional Accounts

Diageo is a world-class leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands across spirits and beer! Diageo has over 200 outstanding brands – old and new, large and small, global and local, with brands sold in 180 countries at almost every price point, in every category to meet consumer demand.

Diageo is the leading spirit player in every region of the world, highlighting a broad portfolio of both international and local brands. Diageo leads the top two largest spirit brands in the world, Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff, and 20 of the world’s top 100 spirit brands. Its portfolio includes Crown Royal, Cîroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Buchanans, Don Julio, Casamigo’s, Tanqueray, Baileys and Guinness!

 Purpose:
 

The Director Category Development Grocery and Regional Accounts will lead our grocery channel customers on both a national and regional basis from a category management perspective.    

Primary focus will be on driving category growth at our key customers for which Diageo is a category advisor (Albertsons, Kroger) and regional customers where there is an opportunity to develop growth strategies for the customer and Diageo.  This role is charged with the development and implementation of holistic insight-based category strategies, assortment, shelving, promotional planning and conversion driving business building ideas. The ability to prioritize in the face of multiple, sometimes conflicting, priorities is key. Finally, the candidate must build strong, mutually beneficial, senior level relationships and have strong enough communication/influencing skills to drive a winning category strategy with retailers. Being able to act in a hugely entrepreneurial environment is paramount to success in this role given the decentralized nature of our regional customers.

Management Responsibility:

• Lead day to day activities of 4 sub-teams; Albertsons (Nor Cal and So Cal), Kroger and Regional that reside in 4 different locations within the U.S.    
• Partner with our National Accounts and Regional Accounts Sales teams to ensure Category Management opportunities are identified and acted upon  
• Support Diageo culture and values, and provides critical input to the Commercial Planning & Activation team regarding trade and performance.

Complexity of Role:

• Understanding of both retailer and distributor/wholesaler needs. In addition, broad understanding of marketplace dynamics.
• Keen awareness of competitive set and competitive innovation activity
• Ability to develop category strategies and go-to-market standards to help support commercial sell-in of new products and existing portfolio
• Develop beverage alcohol insights to advise and inform on strategies that drive volume and profit growth
• Analytical: Ability to gather, synthesize, analyze, and present data from multiple systems/sources (examples: IRI, Nielsen, Spectra, Account Sold, Shipment, Depletion, etc.) 
• Will need to work well with, and provide support across project teams, which include Brand, Customer Marketing, Innovation, Consumer Planning and the field organization.
  Working knowledge of space management tools, specifically JDA Space Planning

Key Outputs:

• Partnering with National Accounts and Regional Accounts Sales/Leadership to provide focus on creating an efficient assortment and effective merchandising agenda that will help the spirits shelf work harder for the category throughout our key customers
• Development of category strategies and key activation customized for key customers
• Responsible for determining customer category opportunity gaps and potential demand side category development initiatives
• Communicates opportunities internally to National Accounts, Division Sales Leads and Distributor partners and prioritizes based on projected financial impact
• Responsible for post-evaluation of category development programs and initiatives relating to the shelf throughout the Division
• Responsible for managing to the assigned T&E budget
• Responsible for developing team and individuals capabilities and provide them with the experiences that will allow them to cultivate a successful career at Diageo

Experience:

College graduate with 15-20 years relevant experience that should include: 

• Proven people management skills with track record of developing, promoting high performing teams
• Category management with leading organization/customer.
• Solid software skills relevant to category management function (syndicated, SPECTRA, Panel data, sales tracking) 
• Previous category captaincy or equivalent experience p