Category Manager

Role & responsibilities

1. Category Strategy & Performance

• Own category-level sales, growth, availability and profitability objectives.

• Analyse SKU, channel & geography-wise performance to identify opportunities and gaps.

• Develop category growth strategies across pack sizes, pricing, channels and markets.

2. New Product Development & Innovation

• Identify opportunities for new products, variants, formats, formulations and pack sizes based on market and consumer insights.
• Lead taste tests, product trials, pilot batches, formulation and packaging development.

3. Branding & Portfolio Management

• Own and strengthen the branding, positioning and consumer proposition of the existing product portfolio as well as new products.
• Periodically analyse brand/product performance, consumer perception and competitive positioning and recommend improvements.

4. Market, Consumer & Competitor Insights

• Continuously analyse consumer preferences, emerging trends and category needs.
• Conduct market visits and gather insights from consumers, competitor behaviour, retailers, distributors, sales teams and digital channels.

5. Sales, Distribution & Product Availability

• Monitor category sales and distribution across General Trade, Modern Trade, ECommerce, Quick-Commerce and D2C, wherever applicable.

• Work with Sales teams to improve distribution, outlet coverage and throughput.

• Ensure adequate stock across depots, distributors, retailers and digital channels

6. Cross-Functional, Quality & Regulatory Coordination

• Coordinate with Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, R&D, Procurement, Production, Finance and E-Commerce teams to ensure effective execution of category plans.

• Work with marketing agencies, influencers/creators and external partners to execute branding and consumer engagement initiatives.

Preferred candidate profile

• Demonstrated experience in product branding and positioning, including management of existing portfolios and/or new product launches preferably in FMCG, Food Products.

• Strong understanding of consumer behaviour, category trends, distribution, competition, pricing and profitability.

• Experience in market research, product launches and branding will be preferred.

• Strong analytical, Excel, project management and cross-functional coordination skills.

• Ability to convert market & consumer insights into product, branding & strategies.

• Ownership mindset with the ability to independently drive category performance & product development through launch, growth and lifecycle management.