Category & Channel Development Manager

About the role

The Category & Channel Development Manager is responsible for driving category growth, channel development, and shopper-centric commercial strategies that deliver sustainable sales growth, market share expansion, and profitability. This role transforms consumer, shopper, category, channel, and customer insights into actionable commercial plans and effective in-store execution. The incumbent acts as the key bridge between Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, Finance, and other cross-functional teams to ensure commercial excellence and successful execution across all channels.

Key responsibilities

• Develop and execute category growth strategies aligned with the company's business objectives.
• Analyze market trends, consumer behaviour, shopper insights, and competitor activities to identify growth opportunities.
• Lead category performance reviews and recommend initiatives to improve sales and profitability.
• Develop annual category plans and support long-term commercial planning.
• Design channel-specific strategies for General Trade, Modern Trade, Convenience, Wholesale and other emerging channels.
• Develop channel commercialization plans that maximize category penetration and customer value.
• Identify whitespace opportunities and recommend new routes-to-market.
• Translate shopper, retailer and consumer insights into actionable business recommendations.
• Collaborate with Sales and Marketing teams to develop effective promotional and activation strategies.
• Monitor category and channel performance using relevant KPIs.

About you

• Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Economics, Commerce or a related discipline.
• 5–8 years of experience in FMCG within Category Management, Trade Marketing, Shopper Marketing, Commercial Planning or Sales.
• Proven experience in developing category growth strategies and commercial execution.
• Strong analytical and business planning skills.
• Experience managing cross-functional projects and stakeholders.
• Strong understanding of modern trade and general trade environments.
• Excellent presentation, communication and influencing skills.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.
• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to translate data into actionable business recommendations.