Sr. Category Manager

Key Responsibilities 

• Provide leadership, direction setting, and clear strategic focus to the multi-functional category team to ensure accountability and delivery of business goals.
• Lead cross-functional inter dependencies (AVS, In-Stock, Product Management, Marketing) with relevant stakeholders.
• Translate category metrics into actionable plans as determined by different inputs which drive category performance.
• Create sustainable process improvements which drive year-over-year progress in the category.
• Identify new approaches for improving selection and category awareness to better manage the performance of the category over the long run.
• Focus on talent management of the team which includes effectively recruiting and developing the best and creating an environment that motivates people to thrive in their expertise and deliver on our ambitious goals.

STRATEGY:

• Sets strategic directions for the business that optimizes for long-term success, focusing on customer experience, growth, and profitability.
• Creates and communicates long-term plans (1-3 yrs.) including forecasting and resource planning/allocation.
• Understands and communicates risks and identifies growth opportunities for the business.
• Designs, validates, and institutionalizes cross-team best practices; consults with other senior leaders on cross-category priorities.

VENDOR MANAGEMENT:

• Set direction and aligns the team to drive category selection and growth strategies.
• Represents team at top-to-top vendor meetings by aligning objectives and working toward common goals.
• Drives strategic negotiations that have large-scale GMS and P&L impact with improved costs and terms.
• Anticipates future risks and proactively creates plans to avoid reactive negotiations.
• Provides feedback on existing programs or initiate the creation of new programs to drive vendor participation.

BUSINESS OPERATIONS:

• Establishes pricing, selection, and convenience goals for the category that delivers long-term positive results; develops processes to audit team inputs.
•  Owns Retail P&L for the category and focuses on strategy for scalable revenue and margin improvement.
• Balances portfolio to manage goals for multiple brands
• Aligns strategy for promotional plans, sets the vision for category promotions, and reviews and audits to ensure the quality customer experience
• Audits team’s work periodically and directs team to perform deep-dive analysis on problems; presents findings to senior leadership.
• Coaches and empowers the team to identify and automate product lifecycle changes that scale to all retail categories while maintaining individual accountability.
• Effectively negotiates projects and agendas across a broad range of cross-functional teams and tech teams; influences through persuasion, not politics.

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT – CUSTOMER FOCUS:

• Ensures teams prioritize the quality of customer experience.
• Uses industry knowledge to broaden or clarify customer and category problems/opportunities.
• Creates and maintains a strong customer obsession and innovation culture within the team.
• Benchmarks against the competition, assessing our performance against theirs, identifying improvement areas, and directing the team to close gaps.

TEAM DEVELOPMENT & PEOPLE STRATEGY:

• Audits knowledge management resources; determines future state investments; cultivates a learning culture.
• Influences colleagues with role-model behavior.
• Reinforces a culture that sets a high bar and hires for potential.
• Contributes to hiring and mentoring peers in other functions.
• Demonstrates ability to attract senior talent and multiple functions from inside and outside of the company.
• Facilitates understanding of broader organizational tenets and strategic goals for the business.
• Audits team goals to ensure alignment with broader organizational goals; is accountable for business performance against goals.
• Sets high-performance standards for the business.
• Plans and advocates for team resources.
• Develops and communicates team vision that supports the broader organizational vision.
• Ensures team culture consistently demonstrates alignment with leadership principles; visibly ties business decisions to leadership principles and tenets

Basic Qualifications:

• Proven experience as a category manager or similar role.
• Solid knowledge of category management, marketing, and sales principles.
• Understanding of data analysis and forecasting methods.
• Proficient in MS Office.
• An analytical mind with a strategic ability.
• People management experience required
• Experience with financial analysis and P&L ownership
• Professional experience in negotiating with internal and external stakeholders
• Professional experience in leading large deals
• Negotiations, analytical, vendor, and/or project management experience
• Ability to think and react in a high-energy, fast-paced environment
• Masters/BA in business administration, marketing, or related field.
• 5 – 10 years relevant experience; Experience in online retail will have an added advantage.

Application

Qualified and interested applicants who meet the specifications are requested to send their CVs to recruitment@amsol.africa/http://jobs.amsol.africa/explore-job.php?jobid=5902698125 by 8th May 2023. Indicate the position applied for in the subject line.