About this Position
We are seeking an experienced and strategic Category Management & Shopper Team Lead to drive category growth and shopper engagement across the UK & Ireland market. Leading a team of two Category Managers and two Shopper Marketing Managers, this role is pivotal in shaping category strategies, delivering compelling shopper marketing plans, and building strong retailer partnerships.
The ideal candidate will bring proven expertise in both category management and shopper marketing, ideally gained in a leading CPG/FMCG company, with a strong understanding of the UK&I retail landscape.
What you´ll do
- Lead, coach, and develop a team of Category Managers and Shopper Marketing Managers, fostering a high-performance and collaborative culture.
- Ensure team alignment with commercial, sales, and marketing priorities.
- Champion best-in-class processes, tools, and ways of working.
- Lead the development of insight-driven category strategies for key retailers.
- Translate shopper, market, and retailer insights into actionable growth drivers.
- Partner with commercial teams to influence retailer range reviews, promotional plans, and shelf execution.
- Monitor category performance and provide actionable recommendations to maximize market share and ROI.
- Oversee the creation and execution of shopper activation plans aligned to brand and category strategies.
- Build strong joint business plans with retailers, delivering innovative, insight-led shopper campaigns.
- Ensure all shopper activity is measurable and delivers against key objectives (penetration, conversion, basket size).
- Manage budgets effectively, optimizing ROI across activations.
- Act as the key interface between sales, marketing and NRM to ensure aligned plans and execution.
- Partner with global and Western Europe regional teams to adapt best practices to the UK&I market.
- Represent category and shopper functions internally, influencing senior stakeholders with data-driven recommendations.
