The Director, Category Leadership, Walmart is responsible for leading work with specific large store retailers on beverage strategies and tactics to maximize the opportunity for both the category and Coca-Cola. Key deliverables include opportunity assessment, beverage strategy development as part of a category blueprint, shopper insights, assortment and space recommendations, main shelf placement, display best practices, etc.
Position Responsibilities
Partners with Walmart on key Category strategy, assortment, and space decisions including working with senior executives to collaboratively build strategies and tactics designed for future category growth.
Makes beverage strategic and tactical recommendations to drive future category, retailer, and Coca-Cola growth by leveraging unique insights from point of sale, shopper card, panel data as well as other industry sources.
Builds strong connection between Walmart and Coca-Cola’s strategic priorities.
Stewards’ development & implementation of process for sharing best practices within Coca-Cola to drive/shape future corporate strategy.
Leads the interaction with cross-functional leads to address key business questions and develop volume and revenue growth strategies that allow both companies to meet and exceed plan expectations.
Ensures that category management tools, data, and shopper insights are effectively leveraged to grow distribution, space, and optimized assortment for all beverage categories.
KEY FOCUS AREAS
Strategic Thinking and Strategy Development:
Partner in the development of annual business plan; drive category strategy and opportunities; and ensure the plan has a relevant category strategy which will win in the market
Focus on Walmart category development
Provide leadership & continued stewardship for Walmart’s beverage categories (Sparkling and Still)
Recommends space opportunities and risks for the beverage category
Project Management:
Collaborate with cross functional departments (Channel Strategy, Marketing, RGM etc) on projects focused on becoming our customers most valued supplier
Relationship Management:
Develop solid working relationships with key retailer divisional/category managers to drive NARTD beverages into all aspects of their shopper engagement strategy in-store
Act as brand champion for Coca-Cola by defining and driving overall brand objectives through the practice of category management techniques, delivering comprehensive category programs internally and across retail partners to drive product and brand initiatives
Build strong team-oriented relationships with other key internal business units and/or global partners that result in new business and/or cross-category opportunities
Education: Minimum Required Bachelor’s Degree Preferred: MBA or other graduate degree
EXPERIENCE
Minimum Required:
5+ Years in CPG Industry
Senior level experience within the consumer goods/beverages industry
Strong knowledge of category management principles and analytic techniques
Preferred Level:
7+ Years in CPG Industry
Experience across multiple disciplines beyond category management (Shopper Insights, Revenue Growth Management, etc)
SKILLS
Advanced analytical capability
Specific capabilities with customer specific data sources (Walmart Luminate, Retail Link, etc.)
High level of experience in data providers (Nielsen, IRI)
High technical skill and aptitude with computer software (MS Office, JDA, Power BI, etc.)
Demonstrated reputation for customer engagement with ability to positively drive business results
Ability to link category leadership strategies to customer strategies
Analytics experience – ability to draw insights and actions from data
Planning experience – strategic thinking, forward looking, time cognizant
Drives organizational performance, efficiency, & effectiveness by translating analytics into actions and results
Travel: 20%
Location: Bentonville, Arkansas
Skills:
Leadership; Social Media; Sales Channel Development; Conversion Rate; Key Performance Indicators (KPI); Marketing Campaigns; Digital Advertising; Structured Query Language (SQL); Branding; Demand Generation; Media Buying; Product Commercialization; Channels Strategy; Marketing Strategies; Tableau (Software); Market Segmentation; Customer Insights; Alteryx; Customer Data; Microsoft Office; Google Analytics; Strategy Development; Customer Engagement; Microsoft Power Business Intelligence (BI); Marketing Insights