Senior Category Associate

Nat Habit; Gurugram District; On-site; INR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Nat Habit is seeking a Senior Category Associate in Gurugram to own end-to-end category performance, grounded in consumer insights. You will drive pricing, promotions, assortment decisions and new launches based on direct consumer input and data-driven analysis.

You will manage the category P&L, shape strategic bets, and coordinate with Marketing, Creative, and Supply teams to translate insight into action while maintaining hands-on consumer engagement.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of experience, ideally with exposure to consumer research/insights and category or business ops - a Category Associate background, or equivalent, is ideal.
• Comfortable owning a number: you think in margin, contribution and growth, not just tasks completed.
• Strong data fluency with a real bias to automate - you build the system once so you're not rebuilding the report every week.
• A decisive, business-first operator - you can move from "here's the insight" to "here's the decision" to "here's what shipped."
• Still hands-on with consumers directly - this isn't a desk-only role even at the senior level.
• Bachelor's degree in any discipline.

Responsibilities

• The full Category Associate scope - consumer insight generation (calls, FGDs, in-person), insight-to-action, category ops, KPI dashboards and automation, ground-up category mapping - at a higher bar of independence.
• Category P&L. Own revenue, margin and growth for your category end-to-end - you know the number, you know why it moved, and you're accountable for moving it.
• Pricing and promo decisions. Set and adjust pricing, discounting and the promo calendar for your category based on consumer insight, competitive movement and margin impact.
• Portfolio and launch calls. Decide what's in and out of the category's assortment - which SKUs to push, fix or sunset - and drive new launches from consumer insight through to go-to-market, owning the business case.
• Inventory and investment. Make the call on stock investment and category spend, balancing growth against working capital.
• The "why" behind the plan. Brief and align Marketing, Creative, Supply and Ops around your category plan - you're the person who owns the reasoning, not just the numbers.

Skills

Consumer insights

Data fluency

Automation mindset

Decision making

Hands-on with consumers

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

About Us

We are making natural living a HABIT little by little. We do so by serving 100% natural self care to our consumers. The products are scientifically formulated, guided by ayurvedic principles & modern science. They are prepared fresh everyday in our ayurvedic kitchen, out of whole and raw ingredients such as fresh milk, curd, fruit pulps, flowers, herbs, nut & spices. They are finally tested clinically for efficacy & safety. This offering of Fresh Ayurveda has made a mark in the Indian personal care industry.

Today ~60Lac customers trust us for their personal care needs. The founding team has a strong startup experience, is well funded and backed by tier 1 institutional investors.

About the role

A Senior Category Associate does everything a Category Associate does - stays close to the consumer, keeps the insight engine running, keeps ops tight - and then goes one step further: you own the category's P&L and make the calls. Pricing, mix, promo calendar, launch bets, inventory investment - the decisions are yours, backed by the ground-truth you built.

Why this stays hands-on even once you own the P&L

It would be easy, at this level, to hand the calls and FGDs to someone junior and sit with the dashboard instead. We deliberately don't let that happen. The decisions you're now accountable for - pricing, assortment, what to launch, what to sunset - are only as good as the ground-truth behind them, and that ground-truth comes from talking to consumers directly, not from a report someone else generated.

Secondary data tells you what happened last month. A direct conversation tells you why, early enough to act before it shows up as a dip in the number you own. The Senior Category Associates who make the best calls are the ones who never fully hand over the phone - they just get faster and sharper at turning what they hear into a decision.

What you'll own

• The full Category Associate scope - consumer insight generation (calls, FGDs, in-person), insight-to-action, category ops, KPI dashboards and automation, ground-up category mapping - at a higher bar of independence.
• Category P&L. Own revenue, margin and growth for your category end-to-end - you know the number, you know why it moved, and you're accountable for moving it.
• Pricing and promo decisions. Set and adjust pricing, discounting and the promo calendar for your category based on consumer insight, competitive movement and margin impact.
• Portfolio and launch calls. Decide what's in and out of the category's assortment - which SKUs to push, fix or sunset - and drive new launches from consumer insight through to go-to-market, owning the business case.
• Inventory and investment. Make the call on stock investment and category spend, balancing growth against working capital.
• The "why" behind the plan. Brief and align Marketing, Creative, Supply and Ops around your category plan - you're the person who owns the reasoning, not just the numbers.

What great looks like in your first 90 days

• You can explain your category's P&L movement for the last quarter, cold - and you have a point of view on what to do next.
• You've made and owned at least one real pricing, promo or assortment call, and can show the before/after.
• Your workflows and trackers run without you touching them daily - your time is going into decisions, not data-pulling.
• Cross-functional teams come to you as the source of truth in your category.

What you bring

• 2+ years of experience, ideally with exposure to consumer research/insights and category or business ops - a Category Associate background, or equivalent, is ideal.
• Comfortable owning a number: you think in margin, contribution and growth, not just tasks completed.
• Strong data fluency with a real bias to automate - you build the system once so you're not rebuilding the report every week.
• A decisive, business-first operator - you can move from "here's the insight" to "here's the decision" to "here's what shipped."
• Still hands-on with consumers directly - this isn't a desk-only role even at the senior level.
• Bachelor's degree in any discipline.

Website: www.nathabit.in

Instagram: www.instagram.com/nathabit.in