Sr Category Strategy Manager, Functional Beverage

Glanbia; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Staff discounts

Health & dental plan

401K

Generous family leave policy

Job summary

Glanbia is seeking a Senior Category Strategy Manager for Functional Beverages to drive the global category growth within the Premix portion of Health & Nutrition. You will identify opportunities, lead market insights, and partner with sales to expand the customer base.

The role requires a Bachelor’s degree with MBA preferred, 5–10 years in B2B foods/ingredients, and strong financial acumen. Hybrid work with travel to customer sites and events is expected.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• 5-10 years of experience in the B2B food and/or ingredients space focusing on business development.
• High proficiency with MS Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.
• Strong financial acumen with experience shaping portfolio P&L, pricing, pack architecture, and business cases.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the global category strategy for Functional Beverages and drive growth initiatives.
• Lead the synthesis of market, consumer, and competitive insights to identify opportunities and inform decisions.
• Serve as category expert in customer engagements and translate insights into opportunities and growth.
• Coordinate launches with cross-functional teams and back them with strong value propositions.
• Partner with sales to expand the opportunity pipeline and prospect new customers.
• Assess category performance and identify opportunities to enhance growth and beverage formats.

Skills

Business development

Portfolio P&L

Pricing strategy

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA

Tools

MS Word

Excel

Outlook

PowerPoint

Job description

Glanbia is a better nutrition company, home to consumer brands and ingredients that help people around the world feel strong, nourished, and to perform well at any age. Our global ingredient solutions business creates better, healthier and smarter nutritional and functional ingredients for healthy lifestyles. Our unique technologies and experience in taste development with food, nutrition and beverage applications meets the evolving consumer need for greater transparency without sacrificing taste.

Role Summary

The Senior Category Strategy Manager – Functional Beverages is responsible for driving the strategic growth of the Global Functional Beverage Category within the Premix portion (B2B) of Glanbia Health & Nutrition. You will identify white space opportunities and new markets within ingredient systems, functional actives or beverage formulation.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the global category strategy for Functional Beverages, including innovation priorities, go to market plans, and H&N cross-portfolio solution selling to accelerate revenue growth.
• Lead the development of deep category understanding by synthesizing global market, consumer, and competitive insights to identify priority growth opportunities and inform strategic decision making.
• Serve as the category expert in customer engagements, partnering with sales and other functions to translate market insights into innovation opportunities and commercial growth.
• Coordinate new product launches with cross functional teams, ensuring strong value propositions backed by consumer insights and competitive analysis.
• Partner with sales to expand the opportunity pipeline and support targeted prospecting for new and emerging customers.
• Regularly assess category, key customer and brand performance, identifying opportunities to enhance customer appeal and category growth (including new beverage formats).
• Define and manage the category collaboration and innovation pipeline and roadmap, ensuring alignment between customer demand, technology capabilities, and long term portfolio‑strategy.
• Support delivery of category revenue ambition by identifying, prioritizing and advancing high‑value commercial opportunities (win‑room).
• Enable the commercial (and wider organization) through category education, sales tools, and training that increase Glanbia H&N’s right to win.
• Develop value‑added pricing approach by understanding key market insights, competitive differentiators, and related factors.
• Lead cross functional alignment across R&D, marketing, insights, procurement, and commercial teams to ensure strategy execution.

Experience

• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• 5-10 years of experience in the B2B food and/or ingredients space preferably with a focus on business development.
• High proficiency with MS Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.
• Strong financial acumen with experience shaping portfolio P&L outcomes, pricing, pack architecture, and strategic business cases.

Hybrid with approximately 10-20% travel to customer sites, Glanbia offices, supplier visits, and industry events.

About Glanbia

Glanbia is a better nutrition company with three divisions: Performance Nutrition, Health & Nutrition and Dairy Nutrition. Collectively and with our partners we offer an incredible breadth of expertise in nutrition. We employ a team of 5800 people, work with global food and beverage companies, and sell our award‑winning and market‑leading brands and ingredients in more than 100 countries worldwide.

What we would like to offer you!

The opportunity to develop your career on a global stage, continuous learning through an on-demand learning platform, and a competitive compensation package including staff discounts, generous family leave policy, health & dental plan, competitive salary, 401K. Glanbia provides a reasonable range of compensation for roles; the salary range for this role is $120,000 - $150,000 plus an annual bonus. This range may not be applicable to other locations and targeted salary is midpoint of range. Factors that could be used to determine your actual salary may include your specific skills, years of experience and comparison to current employees already in this role.