Category Development Controller - Spreads, Bakery, Biscuits in England

About the Role: At Ferrero, we are committed to winning in market through strong category leadership, insight, and execution excellence. As a Category Development Controller – Spreads, Bakery, Biscuits, you will be the key Trade Marketing lead for your assigned categories, responsible for shaping and delivering market-winning category strategies across multiple channels. Reporting to the Head of Category Development, you will lead the development of bottom-up category plans, translating brand strategy into actionable, commercially driven plans across modern trade, traditional channels, OOH, and eCommerce. You will define the role each customer and channel plays within the category, ensuring plans are clearly communicated and effectively executed by Sales teams. This is a highly visible leadership role, requiring strong commercial acumen, strategic thinking, and the ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders to drive sustainable category growth and market share.

Main Responsibilities: You will be accountable for the development and delivery of Trade Marketing category plans, ensuring full alignment with brand strategy and wider business objectives. This includes identifying growth opportunities, defining listing strategies, shaping activation guidelines, and building clear channel and customer roles within the category. You will lead category and customer performance analysis, using internal and external data sources to identify key drivers, risks, and opportunities. You will translate complex data into compelling insights and recommendations, supporting strategic decisions and ensuring clear communication across the business. Working closely with Sales teams, you will play a key role in customer planning and negotiations, ensuring category strategies are effectively translated into customer plans. You will oversee the customer offer process, ensuring consistency, quality, and alignment with business priorities, while also tracking execution and performance in-store. You will take ownership of category leadership, developing and embedding multi‑channel “winning plans”, including defining the role of packs, creating “Picture of Success” guidelines, and delivering category growth stories to both internal and external stakeholders. You will ensure strong execution through planograms, assortment strategies, and merchandising principles, driving consistency and impact across channels. You will also lead price and promotional strategy at category level, working closely with Revenue Growth Management to translate pricing frameworks and promotional strategies into actionable plans. You will evaluate performance, optimise plans, and ensure delivery of revenue, margin, and market share objectives. As a people leader, you will manage, coach, and develop your team, fostering a high‑performance culture aligned with Ferrero values. You will support capability development, empower individuals, and ensure strong collaboration across functions.

About You: You are an experienced and commercially driven category or trade marketing leader, with a strong track record of delivering growth within a complex FMCG environment. You bring deep expertise in category strategy, shopper insight, and customer engagement, with the ability to translate data into compelling, actionable plans. You are confident influencing at senior levels, working cross-functionally with Sales, Marketing, Finance, and external partners to drive alignment and execution. Your strategic mindset allows you to anticipate market trends, define clear category roles, and build plans that deliver both short‑term performance and long‑term value. You are a strong people leader, with experience managing and developing teams, and a passion for building capability and driving high performance. You combine attention to detail with a big‑picture mindset and are comfortable operating in a fast‑paced, dynamic environment.

About Ferrero: Ferrero began its journey in the small town of Alba in Piedmont, Italy, in 1946. Today, it is one of the world’s largest sweet‑packaged food companies, with many iconic brands sold in countries all over the world.

DE&I at Ferrero: Ferrero is committed to building a diverse and inclusive culture in which all employees feel welcomed and appreciated and have the same opportunities. We believe all our people are equally talented in their own way. In nurturing the curiosity and natural abilities of our employees, we provide them, generation after generation, the means to succeed personally and professionally, enabling them to craft their journey at Ferrero. The diversity of our talents is what makes our work environment multicultural, innovative, and highly rewarding.