Sr. Manager, Category Management

Digital Sales, Market Data Intelligence & Strategy | Naperville | Full Time | Permanent

Wilton is a global heritage brand with a 95-year history in baking and decorating. As part of the Dr. Oetker family, Wilton aspires to be the most influential and successful cake decorating brand, sparking more ways to create sweeter moments both in the kitchen and the workplace. Learn more about Wilton at www.wilton.com.
 

Description

Do you have a passion for transforming insights into powerful category strategies that fuel sustainable growth? The Senior Manager, Category Management, plays a pivotal role in developing and executing insight-led category strategies that support Wilton's commercial growth objectives. Leveraging a deep understanding of shopper behavior, market dynamics, and consumer trends, this role is responsible for identifying opportunities to drive category growth, enhance competitive advantage, and strengthen retailer partnerships. Reporting to the VP of Digital Sales, Market Intelligence, and Strategy, this leader will manage a team of direct & indirect reports to set the day-to-day direction and help guide our internal sales and external agency partners in bridging the gap between insight and execution, ensuring commercial decisions are grounded in robust analysis and aligned with our long-term business objectives.

Ingredients

• Serve as the overall leader of category insights to our 3rd party Sales Brokers and a strategic partner to the Wilton Sales teams by providing guidance on the design and enablement of tools, insights, and playbooks/templates that enhance customer engagements and selling effectiveness.
• Coach and support our Brokers and Sales NAMs in designing category strategy PowerPoint documents,advanced analytics outputs, and visualizations to enable stronger customer storytelling and execution of Wilton’s growth plans.
• Monitor overall category performance metrics across multiple segments, analyzing trends and results to assess the effectiveness of category strategies.
• Review sales trends, market share, shopper insights, and promotional effectiveness through data analysis and syndicated or custom research that translates insights into recommendations that improve plans, identify opportunities, and optimize category outcomes.
• Partner with Wilton’s Marketing Consumer Business Unit (CBU), Sales, Sales Ops, and Sales Broker Agency Leads to develop and implement comprehensive, insight-driven category strategies aligned with business objectives and consumer trends, including assortment, pricing, placement, and promotional levers to drive profitability and competitive advantage.
• Integrate shopper insights, category trends, e-commerce behaviors, and loyalty analytics into all commercial and brand strategies. Act as a thought leader assisting cross-functional commercial planning to ensure our efforts and priorities align with latest growth opportunities.

Equipment

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Finance, Data Science, or a related field.
• 7-10 years’ experience in Category Management or related roles within the Consumer Packaged Goods industry including knowledge of slow- & fast-moving goods. Experience with our edible & non-edible product categories is a plus.
• Experience as a people manager and/or experience leading cross-functional project teams.

Instructions

• Proficiency in market research, presentation design, and data analysis tools (e.g., Circana, Numerator, SPINS, Scintilla, 84.51⁰, retailer POS portals, dunnhumby, PowerPoint, Excel, Power BI, etc.) for market and performance analysis.
• Strong understanding of category management principles and best practices including knowledge of consumer behavior, market trends, pricing & promotional planning, and retail growth levers.
• Natural curiosity with strong storytelling & presentation skills with the ability to influence internal and external audiences.
• Knowledge and experience building and implementing robust category management playbooks, KPI trackers, and trend reports that easily synthesizes complex data and information into clear insights.
• Ability to manage direct reports and external partners to ensure Wilton’s overall category management best practices and business objectives are implemented and achieved across channels and retailers.
• Structured and data-oriented mindset with ability to collaborate and communicate with stakeholders.
• Possesses a high level of intuition with the ability to synthesize hypotheses into tangible outcomes and actions.
• Works independently and thrives in a dynamic environment.
• Demonstration of growth mindset by embracing the qualities of agility, curiosity, accountability, and innovation consistent with Wilton’s Culture Recipe.

Baking Conditions

• Professional office environment, sedentary in nature.
• Routinely use standard office equipment such as (laptop computers, monitors/keyboards, printers, and telephones).
• Processes information and communicates effectively with others.
• Ability to travel domestically or internationally as needed.

Rewards

Pay Transparency Wage Tier*: III

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