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Senior Manager, Category Leadership

The J.M. Smucker Company
United States, Arkansas, Bentonville
Sep 15, 2025

Your Opportunity as the Senior Manager, Category Leadership - Walmart, Inc.

Location: Bentonville, AR

Work Arrangements: Hybrid - onsite a minimum of 9 days a month primarily during core weeks as determined by the Company; maybe more as business need requires

In this role you will:

  • Lead, coach, and develop team of category advisors responsible for providing strategic and tactical category recommendations across WMT Inc.

  • Drive thought leadership to guide "Best in Class" strategy development and advisory execution

  • Manage a team of 3 direct reports (7 team members total)

  • Develop and implement Category Management initiatives to increase Category Sales, Market Share and Profitability for Walmart

  • Leverage insights to recommend actionable tactics for the customer

  • Execute and lead category reviews, assortment best practices, and MOD execution

  • Enable and promote strong, data-driven decision making to drive winning category growth

  • Interface with category customers on a regular basis to deliver Consumer and Category Insights

  • Work cross functionally to deliver results - creating and enabling strategy to support the Buyer's category, sales and marketing initiatives

  • Proactively monitor industry developments and retail trends to anticipate business needs and drive organizational agility

  • Adopt continuous improvement mindset to elevate advisory execution capabilities and advocate for resources and technology necessary to provide leading category capabilities.

  • Budget Management

  • Lead recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and development across team

  • Foster an inclusive, growth-oriented environment to maximize employee engagement

Support team in delivery of flawless Category Advisory execution:

  • Deliver accurate reporting consistently to Walmart with expert and insightful commentary

  • Provide expert level knowledge concerning current performance and future trends in the category

  • Embody sound understanding and modular automation to drive execution efficiencies

  • Develop and Analyze tracking reports for category and modular performance

  • Use/leverage Scintilla to develop sound category & shopper solutions

  • Deliver on modular expectations to execute buyer strategy

Develop customer specific category reviews and analysis to include:

  • Customer specific templates and formats

  • Scintilla, POS and Syndicated data/panel insights

  • Category SWOT Analysis, Strategies, and Scorecard

  • Category Tactical solutions for Product, Placement, Promotion, Pricing opportunities

Marketplace Expertise:

  • Work with Industry Experts, Insights, CCB, Innovation and R&D to identify relevant Consumer Insights/Trends

  • Develop presentations delivering consumer/category insights

  • Use insights to assist in developing retailer strategies

The Right Place for You

We are bold, kind, strive to do the right thing, we play to win, and we believe in a strong community that thrives together. Our culture is rooted in our Basic Beliefs, and we believe in supporting every employee by meeting their physical, emotional, and financial needs.

What we are looking for:

Minimum Requirements:

  • Bachelor's Degree

  • 8+ years of Consumer-Packaged Goods industry experience

  • 5+ years of Category Management experience

  • 2+ years of Modular Relay experience at Walmart with a strong understanding of technical relay execution

  • People management experience including experience leading direct and cross-functional teams

  • Experience with direct buyer interaction

  • Strong insights skills - comfort with ambiguity and translating data to insights

  • Sound understanding of Syndicated and Panel Data (Circana, Nielsen, or Scintilla)

  • Strong thought leadership and ability to think strategically

  • Strong communication and interpersonal skills

  • Excellent problem solving & analytical ability

  • High degree of self-motivation and discipline

  • Ability to work independently with enterprise mindset and develop relationships with key stakeholders

  • Strong technical skills (Excel, PowerPoint, IRI and/or AC Nielsen)

  • Ability to train Managers and Category Analysts

  • Knowledge of Industry standards relating to Category Management process

Additional skills and experience that we think would make someone successful in this role:

  • Experience with pricing and assortment analytics

Learn more about working at Smucker:

  • Helping our Employees Thrive

  • Delivering on Our Purpose

  • Our Continued Commitment to Ensuring a Workplace for All

Follow us on LinkedIn

#LI-Hybrid

#LI-CM1

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