Senior Category Manager (HBA)

Job Summary:
As Senior Category Manager - you have full accountability of the P&L of a portfolio of products and will develop a winning category strategy to implement across our stores.
Utilizing your strategic skills, you will identify growth opportunities within your category and partner with suppliers and internal stakeholders to deliver a point of difference for our customer base and increase our share within the market.
Main Roles and Duties:
- Execute our customer-centric strategy for your categories to shape a legacy for the future
- Drive innovation within the category, working closely with the broader Merchandise team
- Engage and build relationships with vendors to drive sales, market share and margin. Create and execute market-leading category plans including new brand or product launch plans, promotion plans and marketing plans.
- Drive private label development with the private label team to develop and execute plans to grow own brand penetration and increase overall category profitability.
- Team up closely with the marketing team to develop attractive and exciting promotional events which follow pre-agreed selling plans.
- Collaborate with relevant teams to ensure that store layouts, planograms, promotions and display techniques are effective in maximizing sales and profitability for the category.
- Establish and maintain effective margin and price controls which maximize business profits whilst deliver a good value offer to the customer.
- Manage stock levels and mark-downs to ensure that product availability remains high and product lifecycle is effectively managed.
- Lead and develop a category management team with customer and product focus at all times.
Requirements:
- Category Management and/or Merchandise experience within a retail environment (5-7 years).
- Outstanding influencing, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
- Strategic thinking with the ability to operate in a dynamic, customer-driven retail environment.
- Proven ability to champion and drive change and continuous improvement.
- Strong commercial acumen
- Customer first approach