Head of Category Kiddylicious

Lotus Bakeries, Milan; St Albans; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A dynamic, fast-growing company seeks a new Head of Category to lead the Kiddylicious brand team. This role combines leadership with a data-driven approach to strategy, building relationships with stakeholders and leveraging insights to drive growth. Join a passionate team dedicated to creating moments of happiness through high-quality snacks.

Benefits

On-the-job learning

Open dialogue culture

Delicious branded snacks

Qualifications

• Experience with tools like Nielsen, Circana, Kantar, Dunnhumby.
• Proven history of leveraging complex insight data for strategy development.

Responsibilities

• Lead category team for Kiddylicious, driving insight and strategy.
• Manage category budget and reporting on performance metrics.
• Build relationships with key customers to inform strategy.

Skills

Data Analysis

Leadership

Strategic Thinking

Communication

Commercial Acumen

Job description

Lotus Natural Foods, the healthy snacking division of Lotus Bakeries and a portfolio of 5 incredible brands; BEAR, TREK, nakd. Kiddylicious and Peter’s Yard, all having their own distinct proposition and role within our business. We have great ambitions for all our brands, ensuring that as a business we deliver sustainable growth over the long-term. We believe that taste and quality are 100% of what underpins us as brand leaders within our categories, and what pulls us apart from our competitors. All of our brands started right here in the UK, as the first market for distribution, but over the years we can now be found across the globe, our ranges have got bigger, along with us as a business. To date we have achieved so much, but there is still plenty of room to grow further and that means we need more brilliant people, those that share an ambition for making a difference and want to join us in delivering the next chapter of growth. Fancy getting involved, then read on…

We are looking for a passionate new Head of Category to join an ambitious and high performing business that has driven continuous double digit growth for the last 3 years. Reporting to the Managing Director you will be responsible for leading a team of 2 to deliver outstanding category advice to our key customers, while internally delivering the insight, reporting and category strategy to unlock growth.

Leadership and Team empowerment:

• You’ll lead the category team for Kiddylicious in the UK by setting clear direction, encouraging your team and the wider business to always deliver exceptional results, empowering them through trusted leadership and personal development.
• Setting clear objectives and building development plans for the Category Team to support them in their personal growth.
• Work with our colleagues in the wider business to identify and deliver insights into the UK and Global Brand Marketing teams to inform and shape strategy.
• This is a customer facing role – whilst you won’t necessarily be responsible for retailer accounts day-to-day you will need to build and maintain strong relationships with key contacts so that our customers understand and buy in to our strategy and vision.
• Strong understanding of retailer strategies and the wider environment to ensure we remain customer and shopper centric.
• A strong external network is also helpful to give you an outside perspective from other categories and businesses.

Strategic Insights:

• All this data is only useful if it enables us to make better business decisions. You’ll be integral to the way that the business uses data.
• Key input as part of the MD’s leadership team, being the voice of category and source of objective truth.
• Development of the UK Category Vision and Strategy for Kiddylicious and translating this into something that is both actionable, executable and understandable within each retailer.
• You will lead and own the strategy for Revenue Growth Management.
• You will kick off our annual planning process with a brand and category diagnostics, meaning our brand plans are always insight led.
• You’ll make sure that the right data is available to the business and is being used the right way - whether informing internal strategy and business planning, or improving relationships with our retailers.
• Management of continuous data and regular reporting on category performance to the total Kiddylicious business. Feeding in monthly KPIs to the MD leadership meetings.
• Management of the Kiddylicious category budget – ensuring we are getting the most value for our data.

Profile

Alongside living our TOP values, we are looking for someone who:

• A passion for data and well-versed in the tools of the trade (Nielsen, Circana , Kantar, Dunnhumby, SIP)
• This is a data driven, strategic role, so you’ll be a great problem solver with experience of using complex insight data to create short and long term strategies
• Excellent communication skills, in particular inspirational presentation skills
• Ability to build great relationships both internally and externally, finding collaborative simple solutions and being recognised as a trusted expert that unlocks opportunities
• Able to prioritise quickly in a fast moving, entrepreneurial environment
• Proven commercial acumen by being able to evaluate how category strategy will impact sales and profitability
• This is a small team within the business, but it has a big impact – we need someone who will be an inspiring leader. We’d love someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously, who is passionate about contributing to the culture at Kiddylicious and the wider Natural Foods business and who is happy to get stuck in

"Our working atmosphere is really unique. People are passionate about their work, hard-working and very driven to further grow & improve the business. At the same time, it is an enjoyable working environment with little stress and where everyone is willing to help each other. A perfect balance for me."

Anouck Draps

Global Digital Media & Commerce Manager

Offer

Grasp the opportunity to join an ambitious and driven team with a mix of talents! Being part of a fast growing, international company, you will get tons of on-the-job-learning and acquire new insights.

In addition, you will be part of a culture where passion, team spirit and open dialogue are our main drivers.

And of course, on top of that, you can enjoy delicious branded snacks every day!

Do you want to be part of a terrific team with the ambition to create small momentsof happiness every day? Meet our people, discover their unique skills and get excitedto join them in a great work environment.