Senior Category Advisor, Category Leadership

Arterra Wines Canada; Mississauga; On-site; CAD 75,000 - 103,000; Full time

Job summary

Arterra Wines Canada is seeking a Senior Category Advisor to partner with customers and internal teams in identifying growth opportunities. You will translate consumer, shopper, and market intelligence into actionable category strategies across assortment, shelving, merchandising, and activation.

You will lead data-backed storytelling, influence senior stakeholders, and drive category decisions with syndicated and internal data.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated ability translating complex data into category recommendations.
• Experience translating insights into customer-facing stories.
• Advanced analytical and problem-solving skills with multiple data sources.

Responsibilities

• Lead Category Strategy and Thought Leadership across assortment, shelving, merchandising and shopper activation.
• Build Strategic Customer Partnerships and act as primary category partner for assigned customers/channels.
• Turn data into decisions using syndicated, loyalty, shopper, sales and internal data to diagnose performance.
• Translate insights into actionable recommendations for customers and internal teams.
• Shape assortment and merchandising with evidence-based recommendations.
• Partner with internal stakeholders on portfolio strategy and new-product presentations.
• Conduct targeted analyses to identify opportunities and inform strategic decisions.
• Proactively identify trends and growth opportunities for Arterra and customers.
• Build organizational capability by sharing knowledge across functions.

Skills

Analytical thinking

Power BI

Excel

Data visualization

CPG/category management

Education

University degree in Business/Marketing/Analytics/Economics

Tools

Circana/IRI

dunnhumby

Numerator

Power BI

Job description

Job Description

Reporting to the Director, Category Leadership & Consumer Insights, the Senior Category Advisor is a strategic partner to our customers and commercial teams, responsible for identifying category growth opportunities and translating consumer, shopper, customer and market intelligence into actionable category strategies.

The role leads category thinking across assortment, shelving, merchandising and shopper activation, helping customers make better category decisions while strengthening Arterra Wines Canada's position as a trusted category leadership partner.

About You

You are a commercially minded, analytically curious category professional who enjoys building data-backed stories and turning those stories into action.

You can move comfortably between detailed analysis and senior-level customer conversations, translating complex consumer, shopper and market dynamics into clear recommendations.

You are naturally curious, comfortable challenging assumptions, and confident influencing without authority.

You thrive in an environment where you have the autonomy to identify opportunities, build the analysis and proactively bring forward recommendations.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead Category Strategy and Thought Leadership: Integrate consumer, shopper, customer, market and category intelligence to identify growth opportunities and develop forward-looking category strategies across assortment, shelving, merchandising and shopper activation.
• Build Strategic Customer Partnerships: Own Category Leadership for an assigned portfolio of customers and/or channels, acting as the primary category partner and developing a deep understanding of their shoppers, strategies and growth priorities.
• Build trusted relationships with key customer stakeholders across Liquor Boards, Grocery, Convenience, Private Retail and other channels, positioning Arterra as a valued source of objective category expertise.
• Turn Data into Decisions: Leverage syndicated, loyalty, shopper, sales and internal data to diagnose performance, uncover growth drivers and identify opportunities to grow penetration, frequency, basket and category value.
• Translate Insight into Action: Transform complex analysis into clear, persuasive category stories and actionable recommendations for customers and internal commercial partners.
• Shape Assortment and Merchandising: Develop evidence-based assortment, shelving, planogram and merchandising recommendations that improve the shopper experience and support sustainable category growth.
• Partner with Internal Stakeholders: Bring category, shopper and customer perspectives into innovation, portfolio strategy, joint business planning and new-product presentations.
• Conduct and lead targeted category, customer and channel analyses to identify business opportunities and inform strategic commercial decisions.
• Proactively Identify Opportunities: Anticipate emerging category, consumer, shopper and customer trends, identify their implications for Arterra and our customers, and proactively bring forward growth opportunities and recommendations.
• Build Organizational Capability: Share category knowledge, tools and best practices across Sales, Marketing, Innovation and other functions to strengthen category-led decision making.

Experience & Qualifications

5+ years of progressive experience in Category Management, Category Development, Shopper Insights, Customer Insights or a related CPG/commercial discipline.

University degree in Business, Marketing, Analytics, Economics or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant experience.

Demonstrated experience translating complex data into compelling category recommendations and customer-facing stories.

Strong understanding of category management fundamentals including assortment, shelving, merchandising, shopper behaviour and category performance analysis.

Experience working directly with retail customers and influencing stakeholders through fact-based recommendations.

Strong commercial acumen and understanding of the relationship between consumer behaviour, shopper behaviour, customer strategy and business performance.

Advanced analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to synthesize multiple data sources and distinguish insight from information.

Strong presentation and communication skills, including experience communicating recommendations to senior stakeholders and customer partners.

Intellectual curiosity and a constructive challenger mindset, with the confidence to question assumptions, explore alternative hypotheses and advocate for evidence-based recommendations.

Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities independently in a fast-moving environment.

Experience within CPG, retail or a similarly consumer- and data-driven industry is strongly preferred; experience in beverage alcohol or another regulated category is considered an asset.

Advanced Excel skills and demonstrated experience working with large and complex datasets.

Experience with Power BI or similar visualization tools is preferred.

Familiarity with syndicated, loyalty and shopper data platforms such as Circana/IRI, dunnhumby, LDIA, Numerator or equivalent is considered an asset.

Bilingual English/French is an asset.

COMPENSATION

Budgeted Range – $75,072 - $103,224.

The budgeted range takes into account several factors and qualifications that are considered in making compensation decisions including experience, education, training, licenses, certifications, and other business and organizational requirements.

Base pay is only one component of the total rewards offering at Arterra.

The budgeted range will align with qualifications, including experience, education, training, licenses, certifications, and other business and organizational requirements.

We are committed to establishing a qualified workforce that reflects the diverse population it serves and we encourage applications from all qualified individuals.

We are also committed to preventing and removing barriers to employment for people with disabilities, and we invite you to inform us should you have any accessibility or accommodation needs.

About Arterra Wines Canada

Our mission is simple – to build brands people love. In fact, seven of the top 20 brands in Canada are proudly part of the Arterra Wines Canada family: Jackson-Triggs, Inniskillin, Sawmill Creek, Wallaroo Trail, Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi, Ruffino and Kim Crawford.

We have more than 140 years of experience in the Canadian wine industry, with five estate wineries across the country and over 1,700 acres of premium vineyards.

We have our pulse on viticulture and its latest innovations and most importantly, an understanding of what Canadian consumers are looking for in a bottle of wine.

We own and operate 164 Wine Rack retail stores in Ontario and sell wine kits and products for winemaking through our RJS Craft Winemaking business.