Category Director

The Client team is responsible for building long‑term strategic, commercial relationships with advertisers directly, maintaining spend as well as delivering incremental revenue growth. The team looks at audience behaviour across brands and platforms, whilst applying sector expertise and is expected to demonstrate tangible evidence of best‑in‑class client relationships and industry connections.

Your Role: To be responsible for developing and managing stakeholder relationships with clients directly for the Grocers Category. Your knowledge of the sector will enable you to craft effective narratives that drive interest and traction with clients across the grocer industry as well as sell the power of our audiences, products and platforms.

You will be accountable for maximising revenue/profit from your category, ensuring that all revenue targets are achieved on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis. You will ensure delivery of revenue through our core businesses and platforms, as well as looking for Solutions, Marketing and e‑commerce opportunities. This is a leadership role within the department, responsible for senior client relationships.

Day to day:

• Develop strong relationships with the senior client contacts and decision makers within your category, accountable for knowledge on customers’ future marketing objectives, strategy and tactics as well as category trends, and deliver immersion sessions to build stronger relationships.
• Work with the Consumer Group Client Director to devise a number of thought‑leadership events relevant to our brands, networking the client relationships with stakeholders in our business.
• Setting the strategy for your category, achieving targets and overseeing delivery of revenue/profit, managing the team to deliver enhanced client service and measuring their performance against their ability to deliver.
• Develop a deep understanding of audiences relevant to your category and work with fellow Category Directors to identify synergies and where effort can be shared.
• Proactively lead the creation of major initiatives, ensuring close links with relevant commercial functions (sales, trading, solutions, strategists), Editorial, Marketing, Communications and Insight.
• Represent the Category within News UK Commercial and the wider business.
• Knowledge of all our products, services and audiences across all platforms.
• Adept in delivering great client propositions executed to the highest possible professional standards.
• Establish new ways of doing business direct with clients that look to extend beyond advertising – these include The Fifth, marketing services and events.
• Provide a bank of client case studies to underpin new business efforts.

What we’re looking for from you:

• Extensive leadership sales experience direct to Clients.
• Key relationships in place in the Grocers sector.
• Experience in developing digital‑first propositions.
• Ability to work at pace and in representing multiple brands, each with its own agenda, personality and audiences.
• Excellence at selling.
• Delivery of ambitious targets.
• Excellent attention to detail, polish and flair in dealing directly with senior clients.

What’s in it for you? We love our business and what we do. We want you to love work as much as we do so we promise to offer on‑the‑job training and development enabling you to be the best you can be. News UK is a company full of talented, dedicated and creative people. We are an ambitious and ever‑growing organisation with a passion for storytelling, capturing moments, meaning and magic to make sense of the world.

Our newspapers reach more than 30 million people each week and include The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times. News UK is also home to Wireless, a leading UK and Irish media company boasting independent local and national radio stations.

NewsUK Benefits: We take pride in looking after our amazing talent at News UK. Alongside pay, we offer:

• A generous pension scheme with employer contributions of up to 5%.
• A comprehensive private medical scheme covering pre‑existing conditions.
• Maternity leave of up to 18 weeks full basic salary and paternity leave of up to 2 weeks full basic salary.
• Discounted rates for Fitness First gym membership for employees and immediate family.
• A range of different flexible working options, which can be requested by employees.
• Interest free commuter loan of up to £10,000 tax free.
• ‘Bikes For Work’ scheme to save income tax and national insurance.
• Up to four Volunteering Days per year for employees to use on charities of choice.
• Health and wellbeing benefits including on‑site physio/massage, counselling, legal and others.

Equal opportunities: We are an equal opportunities employer and wholeheartedly support the principle of equal opportunities for all its employees and for all applicants for employment. It opposes all forms of discrimination in the workplace. We are a diverse team so want to maximise every individual’s potential to create a productive environment where everyone feels valued, and where talents are fully recognised and utilised.