The Bel Group is a major player in the food industry through portions of dairy, fruit and plant-based products, and one of the world leaders in branded cheeses. Its portfolio of differentiated and internationally recognized brands includes The Laughing Cow®, Kiri®, Babybel®, Boursin® Nurishh®, Pom'Potes® and GoGo squeeZ®, as well as some 30 local brands. Together, these brands helped the Group generate sales of €3.6 billion in 2022.
Do you want to join a company with strong brands that puts consumers and responsibility at the heart of the decision-making process? Then Bel is made for you!
Are you bold, pragmatic, and determined? Do you want to contribute to the transformation of an international agri-food company? Them come join us and measure the impact of your talent and energy in realizing an ambitious and sustainable company project!
#IWorkForAllForGood
About the Role: As the Head of Category & Customer Strategy, you will take on a senior leadership role within the sales team adopting a strategic position to drive the growth in Category, Trade Marketing and Bel Business Planning. This role will be a key player in external engagement on Bel UK’s two growth platforms (fruit and cheese-based snacks) on all the grocery channels for UK and Ireland. Additionally, this role will be responsible for the management and development of 2 direct reports (Category & Trade Marketing Managers).
This position will report directly into the UK & Ireland Sales Director.
Key Responsibilities:
The main responsibilities of the role is divided into 3 areas:
Owning the Category strategy and vision development: This role will lead the creation of compelling and insight led category growth plans (from vision and execution) – aligning the needs of Bel, our customers and consumers.
• Development of insight-driven Category growth strategy on our cheese and fruit platforms highlighting the needs of our shoppers and customers with a channel approach (Major mults & Convenience & HD & Ecommerce)
• Lead the development of Category Selling Story blueprint for our categories, innovation, renovation and RGM initiatives (PPA, promo, price) in our UK and Ireland markets
• Ensuring the integration of Category Strategy into Brand Strategy and Plans, and drive portfolio optimisation with cross-functional stakeholders
• Work to achieve Category captaincy to enable the Sales Leadership team in developing and nurturing closer and more strategic customer relationships – including senior customer engagement to help build the strategic agenda
• Analyse the sellout data monthly to recommend action plan to internal stakeholders and retailers
Champion shopper excellence via a strong Trade Marketing approach:
• Proactively lead ‘shelf excellence’ including range, fixture layout and POS creation to aid shopper navigation and increase penetration
• Plan & coordinate yearly omni-channel shopper activation calendars (incl. merchandising planning) based on channel and brand plans
• Present and align the channel & shopper strategy and recommendations with the UK/IR Leadership Team.
• Manage and plan channel budget spend
Lead the internal Annual planning cycle (Bel Business Planning):
This role will ensure the coordination with all internal stakeholders of the UK business unit (marketing/sales/finance, supply chain) to deliver a strong budget output internally and a compelling growth plan externally.
Skills/Experience:
• Proven track record of a minimum of 3 years extensive Category Management and Category Strategy experience in FMCG (essential) - preferably in food + beverage.
• RGM track record and implementation (essential)
• Strong analytical skills and ability to analyse big set of data while drawing key summary insights & recommendations (essential)
• A good knowledge / understanding of UK grocery/convenience/HD channels & merchandising experience
• Demonstrated ability to build strong customer relationships based on trust.
• Experience with Nielsen/Circana/Kantar/Dunnhumby/EPOS data.
• Ability to manage a variety of stakeholders internally & externally (customers, agencies).
• Strong interpersonal, communication and presentation skills to various levels of seniority
• Sound strategic understanding, commercial acumen and cross-functional leadership skills
• Experience managing a team
Profile: We're excited to meet candidates with a growth mindset, those who are analytical and solution-focused in their approach. In addition to this, we are keen to meet candidates who possess a natural flair for being proactive and are comfortable in challenging the status-quo with out-of-the-box and critical creative thinking. We encourage candidates to apply who are particularly customer focused and have genuine passion for building long lasting relationships for business development. If you're eager to be apart of a high growth company and lead in a dynamic industry, we'd be thrilled to have you apply.
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