Category Growth Lead: Retail Strategy & Insights

The J.M. Smucker Company; Bentonville (AR); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

The J.M. Smucker Co. is seeking a Manager of Category Leadership in Bentonville, AR to drive retailer growth with Walmart and Sam’s Club. You will lead category growth drivers, develop shelving strategies, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to craft data-driven, actionable plans.

You will translate shopper and retailer insights into JBP and QBR content, supported by Circana/Nielsen data. This role emphasizes storytelling, analytics, and strategic influence across the organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required in a relevant field.
• 6+ years in Consumer-Packaged Goods industry.
• 3+ years Category Management or Shopper Insights experience.
• Strong analytical skills, problem solving, and storytelling experience.
• Cross functional collaboration, especially customer and sales centric.
• Excellent organization and written / verbal communication skills.
• Proficient in leveraging Circana or Nielsen data, POS and panel data, Scintilla, Atlas Planogramming/Planogram software experience (Ex. JDA ProSpace, EZPOG).
• Ability to develop and translate insights into actions with excellent storytelling with data skills.
• Strategic mindset to help build and execute effective plans.
• Travel requirements: up to 20-25%.

Responsibilities

• Leads development and delivery of Customer specific Category Growth Drivers – strategy, initiatives and customized content of compelling category strategies and stories.
• Leads 4P tactical solutions for assigned customers and categories, owning shelving and assortment and partnering with cross functional teams on price/promo.
• Provides thought leadership to elevate Smucker’s voice and influence with Walmart & SAM’S.
• Leads Category first approach in Customer Category Reviews and Assessments as well as Top to Top, JBP, QBR engagement meetings with key customers and internal stakeholders.
• Influences retailer category strategies through account-specific insights, business analysis, and clear recommendations related to distribution, promotion, pricing, and shelf placement.
• Builds customer ready stories, visuals and tools that enable high quality selling conversations supported by insights and data driven recommendations.
• Anchors planning and execution in facts and performance, tracking results, promo/innovation effectiveness, and surfacing risks and opportunities.
• Identifies opportunities and risks for category and JMS, with bias for action.
• Leverages all available data and customized content against consumer, shopper and category insights to create and deliver fact-based strategic selling resulting in implementation & activation at retail.
• Supports and drives omni activation and integration into all category deliverables, workstreams.
• Appropriately collaborates with category advisor teams, while partnering with sales to drive the business.
• Understands the competitive marketplace in which JMS and customers operate.
• Communicates insights and learnings both internally and externally to a wide variety of audiences.
• Provides category and key customer business analytics.
• Actively participates in retailer meetings.
• Collaborates and influences across the various SBAs Internal Business Support.
• Management Partner with Sales, Marketing, Insights, Intelligence, Category Strategy, and other functional teams to identify business opportunities and translate insights into execution.
• Expert on all customer business analytics and resources (Circana, panel, scintilla, etc).
• Identifies requirements for tool development and data support systems to increase visibility and application of key category insights.
• Acts as a liaison back to the JMS HQ Category Leadership team.
• Customer Business Plan Development, Review & Activation.
• Provides input into customer long-term business strategy.

Skills

Analytical skills

Problem solving

Storytelling with data

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication skills

Sales insights translation

Education

Bachelor’s degree

3+ years Category Management or Shopper Insights experience

Tools

Circana data

Nielsen data

POS data

Scintilla

Atlas Planogramming/ProSpace

Job description

The J.M. Smucker Co. is seeking a Manager of Category Leadership in Bentonville, AR to drive retailer growth with Walmart and Sam’s Club. You will lead category growth drivers, develop shelving strategies, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to craft data-driven, actionable plans.

You will translate shopper and retailer insights into JBP and QBR content, supported by Circana/Nielsen data. This role emphasizes storytelling, analytics, and strategic influence across the organization.