Senior Category Manager - Major Grocer in Hemel Hempstead

Location: Hemel Hempstead – Hybrid

Job Length: Permanent

Working Hours: Monday – Friday

Competitive Salary with extensive benefits:

• Monthly product allowance – alcoholic & non-alcoholic options available
• Private Medical options
• Life Assurance
• Company bonus scheme
• Access to 24/7 GP services
• Enhanced pension contribution
• Generous holiday (inc bank holidays)
• Access to a range of high street discounts

Carlsberg Britvic is the largest multi-beverage supplier in the UK and is home to some of the most iconic and popular beers & soft drinks, including Carlsberg Danish Pilsner, 1664, Poretti and Brooklyn to ale favourites such as Hobgoblin and Wainwright. For soft drinks, Carlsberg Britvic’s brands include J2O, Robinsons, Tango and London Essence along with the licence rights to the Pepsi portfolio in the UK including Pepsi MAX, 7UP, Lipton Iced Tea and Rockstar Energy.

With a strong national footprint, the Carlsberg Britvic business includes 5 production facilities and 15 logistics depots servicing customers up and down the UK. As these two historical businesses have come together, the one common goal remains, and that is ensuring our people succeed.

About the Role: The Off Trade in Carlsberg Britvic deliver over £1.4 billion net revenue in 2025 and yet we know there is more growth for us to enjoy as we come together as a total drinks powerhouse.

As a strategic leader within Carlsberg Britvic’s category function, the Senior Category Manager works with the Head of Category to set the direction for long-term growth across key customers and channels. This role owns the development of customer-category visions, leads cross-functional initiatives, and elevates Carlsberg Britvic’s presence as a trusted advisor to retail partners. With an agile and commercially focused mindset, you’ll deliver sustainable, insight-led strategies that drive category value, accelerate brand growth, and enhance our standing as a trusted partner to our customers.

This role is central to our planning and execution of commercial initiatives, therefore strong links will be required across the commercial functions, especially marketing, category strategy, insights, commercial operations and sales teams.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the channels/customer category agenda ‘maximising today, and unlocking tomorrow’
• Own the strategy and development of our annual operating category plans to drive execution against our category vision and range & merchandising blueprints, aligned with Carlsberg Britvic’s commercial priorities.
• Lead the translation of consumer, shopper, and market trends into strategy, identifying where Carlsberg Britvic can drive category growth and gain competitive advantage.
• Set the direction and lead the team to align against the range and space targets and regularly measure progress against this, effectively managing messages through the business cycle.
• Establish and nurture strategic relationships with key customer stakeholders, positioning Carlsberg Britvic as a trusted category authority.
• Leverage thought leadership to co-create impactful solutions that enhance category performance and drive measurable improvements in external evaluations, including the Advantage Group Survey.
• Lead the execution of your customer/channel category roadmap through range reviews and identifying category initiatives to maximise point of purchase outcomes enabling us to maximise range, primary space, secondary location, availability and macro space, in outlet and online.
• Develop relevant category selling stories and tools and lead the development of customer immersions designed to engage customers and influence them to implement category solutions & strategies.
• Lead for and manage the delivery of category building initiatives and trials with customers e.g. fixturisation, cross category, category relays.
• Lead strategic agendas across hot topics such as health and wellness, sustainability, DRS (deposit return scheme) and HFSS (high fat salt sugar legislation) and provide the customer with a category point of view.
• Line manage and mentor Category Managers and Executives, supporting capability development and succession planning.
• Drive team culture grounded in collaboration, excellence, and performance.
• Champion continuous improvement and shared learning across the broader function.
• Put in place a development plan to improve your standards every day.
• Champion the power of category to other functions upskilling category capability and understanding to drive a greater impact.
• Partner with Insights, Category Strategy, Sales, and Brand/Channel operations teams to ensure category thinking is embedded in brand planning and commercial execution.
• Lead inputs into business cases across NPD and EPD with account level information on category and customer marketing opportunities where required.
• Evaluate the impact of actions taken & ensure that learnings feed into future business planning.
• Represent category leadership on steering groups, channel forums, and leadership meetings.
• Set, track, and evaluate performance against space, range and distribution targets aligned to our range & merchandising blueprints.
• Translate insight from results into future-facing planning recommendations and continuous improvement.
• Manage the allocated category development budget against agreed customer data contracts and research projects.
• Complete expenses and sign off teams expenses in a timely manner.

Key Performance Measures:

• Delivery of volume and value growth targets, agreed through AOP.
• Win market share through improved distribution, range and space gains.
• Improved results in the Advantage Group Survey.
• Improvement in perfect store measures.
• Improved employee engagement scores and positive feedback.

Knowledge, skills & experience required:

• Experience in category leadership roles within FMCG, including direct responsibility for customer accounts.
• Proven experience managing teams and leading strategic, cross-functional initiatives.
• Comfortable working with senior-level stakeholders in both retail and internal settings.
• Familiarity with market data, space planning tools (e.g., JDA) and customer insight platforms (loyalty data).

Qualifications:

• Degree-level education in Business, Marketing, Economics or equivalent; additional commercial or leadership qualifications (e.g. MBA) preferred.

Application Process:

We read applications continuously, and vacancies may be filled anytime, so please apply as early as possible. We look forward to receiving your application.

Carlsberg aims to create equal access to opportunity regardless of social identity, and we encourage everyone to apply regardless of gender, nationality, race, religion or any other characteristics protected by law.