Senior Category Manager

What You’ll Do:

The Senior Category Manager is a motivated self-starter and creative storyteller who thrives in a dynamic and fast-paced environment. They are a strategic thinker with the hustle to effectively solve problems when the answers are not easy to find. They are a collaborative and flexible team player with a strong desire to make an impact. They have exceptional communication skills (both written and verbal), keen attention to detail, and a high level of personal accountability.

The Senior Category Manager will be an expert in The Vita Coco Company businesses across Grocery, Natural, and Drug retailers, with direct ownership of Kroger, Albertsons, and the Drug Channel. This person will play an instrumental role in our growth acceleration in those channels and will be responsible for coaching and developing a team of direct reports.

This remote role will report to the Senior Director of Category & Consumer Insights.

How You’ll Do It:

Storytelling

• Embrace a true storytelling mindset, shifting from presenting data to bringing the audience along on a data-based story journey
• Know your audience and how to adapt presentation style/content accordingly to achieve maximum impact
• Elevate presentations from the “what” to the “so what” and the “now what”
• Navigate ambiguity and connect the dots for audiences, using insights to drive action

Relationships

• Become a close partner to the Sales team, working arm-in-arm to enhance business management capabilities, identify opportunities, and cement Vita Coco’s position as a best-in-class partner to retailers
• Influence through collaboration and negotiation, and operate with the understanding that relationships are built on mutual trust
• Collaborate cross-functionally with team members across departments to drive business success
• Establish and cultivate relationships with external Insights partners (vendors, KDP counterparts, etc.) via recurring connects
• Act as a trusted category advisor to retailers, presenting retailers with opportunities and insights that they are unable to see themselves

Leadership

• Manage the development of channel and retailer-specific selling materials
• Own the crafting of the category look of success for Grocery, Natural, and Drug retailers, including making recommendations to retailers on best-in-class shelving designs to capture future category growth
• Coach and develop your team of direct reports, including prioritizing full team workload to maximize business impact
• Drive strategy and thought leadership with outside-the-box thinking

Analysis

• Maintain a close pulse on business performance via ongoing evaluation with Sales counterparts
• Synthesize multiple data sources into compelling and concise fact-based stories
• Establish and track KPIs to measure progress and success in achieving channel objectives
• Analyze shelving, pricing, assortment, and merchandising variables to identify account and channel-specific growth opportunities
• Take on special projects as business needs warrant

What You’ll Bring to Vita Coco:

• Bachelor’s degree in a business-related field required
• 7-10 years of category management experience required
• Experience with 84.51 required
• Significant experience with scanning data sources, such as Circana or NIQ
• Strong mastery of panel data sources, such as Numerator, Circana, and/or retailer-specific data sources
• Experience with JDA or other space planning software
• Proficient in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• A natural curiosity for and expertise in natural + functional beverage trends and strategy
• A continuous improvement mindset rooted in a genuine desire to understand what’s working and what’s not
• Proactivity and the desire to go above and beyond to achieve results