Category Growth Specialist: Shelf Strategy & Analytics

PowerToFly; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 80,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Nestlé USA in Arlington, VA is seeking a Specialist, Category Management & Shelf Strategy to drive customer-centric category growth for Nutrition. You will lead planogram development, shelf optimization, and actionable reporting, translating data into compelling stories for internal teams and retailers.

Collaborate with Category Managers, Sales, Space Planning and cross-functional partners to improve product visibility, shopper experience, and category performance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree preferred; equivalent combination of education and experience considered.
• 2+ years in Sales, Category Management, Shopper Insights, Analytics, Space Management, or related role; CPG/food preferred.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, especially Excel and PowerPoint; ability to synthesize data into business recommendations and customer-facing stories.
• Experience with SQL, Python, automation, or similar tools is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Support Category Managers and Category Leadership Managers in developing customer-specific category growth strategies, business reviews, and customer-facing recommendations.
• Analyze syndicated, customer, shopper, retailer, marketplace, and internal performance data to identify trends, opportunities, risks, whitespace, and growth drivers.
• Develop category stories and recommendations related to assortment, pricing, promotion, merchandising, innovation, renovation, new item support, and display considerations.
• Conduct performance analyses, including pre- and post-evaluation of category initiatives, merchandising programs, planogram actions, assortment changes, and shelving recommendations.
• Translate analysis into clear, actionable insights and visual storytelling for internal planning, customer meetings, and business decision support.
• Build, maintain, validate, revise, and execute multiple versions of planograms based on assortment, clustering alternatives, fixture variations, merchandising guidelines, retailer requirements, and customer objectives.
• Review planograms for adherence to retailer strategy, merchandising standards, fixture realities, execution readiness, and quality requirements.
• Provide support for display merchandising, modular events, shelf layouts, product placement, and retail partner implementation where applicable.
• Collaborate with Category Management, Category Leadership, Sales, Space Planning, Customer Teams, Field Sales, and cross-functional partners to ensure recommendations translate into executable shelf solutions.
• Share reporting, best practices, learnings, and reusable tools across divisions and customer teams to improve quality, speed, and alignment.

Skills

Analytical skills

Storytelling

Presentation skills

Communication

Project management

Cross-functional

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Analytics, Consumer Insights, Retail Management, Space Management, or related field

Tools

Excel

PowerPoint

Blue Yonder/JDA Space Management

SQL

Python

Job description

Nestlé USA in Arlington, VA is seeking a Specialist, Category Management & Shelf Strategy to drive customer-centric category growth for Nutrition. You will lead planogram development, shelf optimization, and actionable reporting, translating data into compelling stories for internal teams and retailers.

Collaborate with Category Managers, Sales, Space Planning and cross-functional partners to improve product visibility, shopper experience, and category performance.