Director, Commercial Category Strategy

The role

In this role, you are a senior commercial leader. You lead Category Strategy & Revenue Growth Management (RGM), shaping enterprise-wide category, portfolio, and pricing strategies. These strategies aim to deliver profitable and sustainable growth. You will drive an integrated approach to category leadership, customer strategy, pricing, trade investment, and innovation influence, with a strong focus on incrementality and long-term value creation across Win In Skin brands in the US.

What you will do

• Lead US Win in Skin Category Growth Team
  • Build out US Category Management capability, including category management personnel leading captainship at Walmart
  • Develop and implement a robust best-in-class product, channel, and category strategy for the US Win in Skin. This strategy should include a clear road map for our portfolio spanning 1-3 years. To drive market share, category growth, and consumer penetration, utilize brand guidelines and NPD plans/strategy from global teams across all brands.
  • Lead the development of category strategy for the US in Skin Enhancement areas, such as UV, Safe Color and Sunless. This involves uniting all Kao relevant brands in the determined category. Collaborate with the AEMEA Global Skincare team on Skin Enhancement areas, such as UV, Safe Color, Sunless, and TBD, to drive best go-to-market execution.
• Strategic Category Leadership & Growth Enablement
  • In collaboration with sales, marketing and commercial leadership, craft bespoke retailer stories for our brands within the physical retailer categories, and prioritize and safeguard category captain thought leadership.
  • Develop and execute long-term growth strategies that drive revenue expansion in line with K27 plans for the US
• Revenue Growth Management (RGM)
  • Evaluate Brand Identified opportunities and recommend new channel strategies for our brands to enter.
  • Design and execute enterprise-wide pricing, pack architecture, and trade investment strategies to maximize net revenue realization.
  • Build frameworks to evaluate promotional effectiveness and drive incremental, profitable growth.
• Incrementality & Performance Management
  • Establish KPIs and dashboards to measure incremental growth across product, channel, and customer dimensions.
  • Champion advanced analytics and scenario planning to improve decision-making and forecast accuracy.
  • Partner with Finance to model profitability, ROI, and long-term value creation of strategic initiatives.

What you will need

• Bachelor's Degree required
• 15+ years of progressive experience in consumer goods sales, brand or retail, with at least 5 years leading Category Strategy and/or RGM functions
• Prefer background working in commercial management, brand marketing, digital marketing, or sales
• Strategic and analytical thinking with understanding of consumer goods, category management, and RGM levers*
• Proficiency in advanced analytics, financial modeling, and trade optimization tools to develop department strengths across each

Kao USA is an Equal Opportunity Employer, including disabled and veterans.

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