Director Category Marketing

Overview: The Director of Category Marketing plays a key leadership role in shaping and executing category strategies for Marzetti Foodservice that deliver sustainable growth and profitability. This role is responsible for driving category planning, P&L and margin management, portfolio strategy, integrated business planning/forecasting, value engineering, innovation, and category/brand marketing for assigned categories. The Director partners with Sales, Customer Marketing, Finance, Revenue Management, End-to-End Planning, R&D/Culinary and Operations to establish clear category priorities and align the organization around annual and long-range business objectives. The role leads the Category Marketing team and provides leadership and recommendations on portfolio, innovation, margin and investment decisions. Responsibilities What You'll Do: Category Strategy & Planning Lead annual and longer-term category strategies, defining growth priorities and where-to-play/how-to-win choices. Translate category, customer, consumer and competitive insights to identify opportunities, risks and recommendations. Establish category objectives, key initiatives and measures of success. Partner with Customer Marketing and Sales to translate category priorities into customer and channel opportunities. Category P&L & Margin Management Own category (Branded & Customer SKUs) financial performance across volume, revenue, mix, margin and profitability. Partner with Finance, Trade and Pricing to establish category margin targets and decision thresholds . Lead portfolio profitability, pricing/mix and margin-improvement decisions. Oversee category marketing budgets. Integrated Business Planning Lead Marketing's category perspective within the IBP process. Own the business assumptions behind the demand outlook and align inputs from Sales and Customer Marketing with Demand Planning. Understand capacity, supply and inventory implications and make category, customer prioritization and portfolio recommendations as required. Partner with Supply Chain on constraints, risks and longer-term capacity requirements including capital and business case development. Ensure innovation, customer initiatives and portfolio changes are represented appropriately in business plans. Category Innovation Develop and lead the category innovation and renovation funnel. Establish business case, value proposition and financial expectation for category innovation. Lead cross-functional alignment for category-driven projects through Stage Gate and commercialization. Provide approval for customer Stage Gate projects. Partner with Customer Marketing on customer-driven opportunities to ensure alignment with strategy, margin expectations and portfolio priorities. Portfolio & Value Engineering Develop portfolio assortment strategy and SKU productivity balancing customer needs, operational complexity, capacity and financial performance Lead SKU optimization and rationalization decisions. Identify and prioritize value engineering, quality improvement, renovation opportunities and regulatory requirements with cross-functional teams. Category / Brand Marketing Lead category architecture / brand positioning and value propositions Partner with Customer Marketing to translate category strategies into channel and customer activation; guide development of selling tools and agency support. Monitor category, competitive, and marketplace trends to identify risks and growth opportunities People & Organizational Leadership Build and nurture a high-performing Category Marketing team. Create clarity around priorities, decision rights and accountability. Communicate category performance, opportunities, risks and recommendations to senior leadership. Build strong general-management, financial and category management capabilities across the team. Qualifications What You'll Bring: Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or related field required; MBA preferred. 10+ years of progressive experience in CPG …

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