Category Manager, Gum & Candy - West Africa at Melos Consulting

At Melos, our mission is to empower businesses across the world by delivering top-notch HR and IT solutions tailored to their specific needs.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Category Manager, Gum & Candy - West Africa

Location: Lagos
Employment Type: Full-time

Job Summary

• To develop and implement a portfolio strategy in line with the category vision to drive sustainable category growth and deliver business objectives through collaborating with cross functional teams, global and regional category teams.
• This position owns and manages the categories P&Ls along with future business development plan & objectives including NPD and platform opportunities.
• This role will also lead the development of world class brand campaigns that will drive category growth and provide leadership to the category brand team in the execution of category brand programs driven by consumer and shopper insights.

Responsibilities
The Category Manager, Gum & Candy is accountable for:
Strategic Planning:

• Determine the category’s strategies and priorities based on understanding growth opportunities for key brands in the portfolio to deliver the growth ambition by collaborating effectively with global, regional category teams and cross-functional teams.
• Develop annual plans including setting objectives, developing portfolio strategy, and allocating resources. Provide specific recommendations and sell-in plans to high-level Management and cross-functional teams.

Execution of Strategy:
Category management:

• Lead the development and execution of category marketing plans to deliver revenue, profit and share objectives for the categories. Monitor the plans against the strategic targets for delivering the growth targets.
• Define brands strategies that ensure delivery against the strategic ambition.
• Collaborate with Innovation team to develop insight led and strategically relevant innovation pipeline that drives category growth across the market.
• Collaborate with Equity team in the development of insight led & strategically relevant integrated marketing communication, 360 degree campaigns in line with the categories’ strategy and vision that drives brand health and growth.
• Lead the national rollout of Equity campaigns in line with approved Equity Campaigns

Lead the brand activations, promotions, in-store campaigns:

• Collaborate & guide trade marketing and in-store executions across the portfolio in line with plans.
• Work closely with the Media Manager to plan and optimise annual campaigns and activations in line with agreed category & brand plans.
• Lead the measurement, evaluation, tracking and reporting of campaigns collaborating with Equity, Innovation, Finance, CP&A and sales teams.

Manage required investment, prioritization, resources and enablers to deliver category targets:

• Drive the analysis of market information from I&A, Sales, CP&A to contribute to the discussion on trade spend activities, have action orientated discussions and strategically evaluate executions, innovation, pricing, competitors and portfolio.
• Identify and understand market trends (key drivers, volume, target, channels, seasons, etc).
• Analyze and propose pricing strategies where needed to improve margins
• Analyze and use information to identify business opportunities: Nielsen, distribution, drop size, margins, channel mix.

Financial Management:

• Accountable to deliver category revenue and profit growth in line with the business objectives through effective P&L management.
• Monitor and measure business performance for the category & brands against a set of KPIs including volume, revenue, profit, A&C (Advertisement & Consumer Spending), net contribution, and share of market.
• Lead A&C management and tracking to ensure in market brand activations / brand building blocks are fully supported to drive both equity and brand activation initiatives.

Collaborate with Sales, CP&A and Finance on financial/volume forecasting for the category:

• To determine financial/volume targets for the category brands and subsequent monitoring.

KPIs
Organization Development:

• Take ownership of the effectiveness of the cross-functional category team to enhance synergies across the business and aligned execution of strategic and operational plans.
• Create a winning category brand team.
• Manage talent through effective recruitment, development, coaching and advancement planning.
• Lead to positively impact the People’s Engagement survey for the organisation in line with annual action plans.
• Work & collaborate with cross functional teams to instil the values of Mondelez International
• Develop clear objectives for direct reports consistent with the company values and business objectives. Train and develop direct reports using Leadership framework as a guide and make training an everyday priority.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified. 

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send their CV and a brief cover letter to: consulting@melosventures.com using the Job Title as the subject of the email.