Senior Category Manager (Cheese Business)

 

Bel, makers of iconic brands including Babybel, The Laughing Cow, Boursin, Kaukauna, Merkts, Price's and GoGo Squeez, is a growing global company that values your contributions, strives to create a sense of belonging for everyone and offers career growth and development opportunities, as well as competitive total compensation and meaningful well-being benefits from day one. For All, For Good, our company signature, reflects Bel’s commitment to sustainability and healthier and responsible food for all. Bel Brands USA has been named Chicago's "101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For" for 10 years in a row. The company has headquartes in Chicago for our Bel Cheese business and in New York City for GoGo Squeez. Bel operates five manufacturing plants in Little Chute, WI, Leitchfield, KY, and Brookings, SD, Nampa, ID, and Traverse City, MI.

Job Summary

As a key member of the Category team for our cheese business, the Senior Category Manager contributes to growing company sales by developing category growth insights that influence our customers to action.  For each customer responsibility, the position is the subject matter expert on category trends, shopper behavior, and retailer strategy.  Through data analysis and development of relevant insights (both qualitative and quantitative), the Senior Category Manager translates these insights into business-building recommendations for both portfolio and category growth at a specific customer.

In addition to the customer-facing responsibilities, the role supports our Brand teams with assortment strategy, develops our national assortment and shelving guidance, and innovation category sell stories. 

 

Essential duties and responsibilities

• Build and deliver customer category reviews with actionable recommendations on distribution and shelving to meet the retailer and Bel Brands’ growth objectives
• Develop and commercialize national assortment & shelving guidance, category 101s, and new item sell stories
• Provide compelling category-focused insights to drive breadth, depth, and quality of Bel Brands USA distribution at customers
• Conduct in-depth assortment analysis and provide recommendations to Sales and Sales Strategy
• Lead category-focused research projects and communicate findings cross functionally to influence business decisions and drive company growth
• Scorecard and metric category performance and drivers, identify opportunities and insights to provide solutions to seize opportunities as well as take corrective action
• Expert on leveraging syndicated databases (IRI, Nielsen, Customer Specific gateways, etc.) to create actionable insights and to provide expertise to Sales Teams
• Develop tools and templates to simplify the analysis process for Sales and Sales Strategy
• Passion and experience for continuously refining tools and capabilities to bring forth the most relevant insights and ensure team is at the forefront of insight capabilities
• Ability to think creatively and adapt to external and internal changes
• Ad-Hoc business reporting as needed to answer time sensitive questions

 

 Qualifications and Competencies

• Bachelor's degree required
• Minimum 3-6 years in Category Management in Consumer-Packaged Goods
• Demonstrated success in leading category customer engagements with major Food o