General Management Assoc Manager

Overview The Lead Catman Food Benelux drives our ambition to continue to be the best category management FMCG player in Benelux, supported by strong wiring and strategic cooperation with our customers across all channels. The Lead Catman Food Benelux acts as an internal advisor and decision driver by turning category expertise into recommendations for the development of our channel strategies, including leading category vision projects together with the Dx MT. The job holder is charged with translating the short-term and long-term category vision and strategy of the categories into Customer Category Development projects. The Category Manager is the category expert for a customer portfolio across Benelux markets and acts as the voice of the customer within the new Dx community to drive channel-focused strategies. The role is responsible for defining customer category growth opportunities and developing objective action plans based on category and customer knowledge, a thorough understanding of channel structures, and category dynamics. The role plays a business-critical role with customers in securing flawless execution of category projects and action plans. The Category Management team is responsible for leading strategic category projects with our customers, commercially supported by the Account Management team. The role leads the identification and development of category growth opportunities for the PepsiCo Benelux business across channels. Bringing a strong customer and category perspective to opportunity identification, the Lead Catman enables effective decision-making and flawless execution of brand- and channel-specific Sales AOP and IBP priorities. Responsibilities Team Management Leads the Benelux Category Management & Space Management agenda and community , securing continuous development and leadership in category management. Leads the Benelux Category Management team towards strong customer wiring and strategic cooperation on key projects, ensuring that approximately 75% of team effort is focused on customers and channels. Ensures category and customer understanding is embedded in category growth development plans, internal processes, and strategic projects to drive long-term profitable growth (e.g., IBP, ACP). Progresses PepsiCo’s category management leadership across the Benelux customer landscape , including emerging channels. Category Expert (Internal – 35%) Category & Customer Insights Leads category planning processes, range reviews, and the embedding of Perfect Store principles across all customers and channels. Leads the development and delivery of category visions for relevant categories. Advises and makes objective recommendations based on category insights derived from multiple sources (e.g., retailer trends, consumer trends, NielsenIQ, GfK, internal data sources). Determines the relevant research questions based on category and consumer understanding and initiates further analysis where required. Supports the development of NPDs through robust and ambitious game planning based on objective category insights. Together with the Perfect Store team, develops the Assortment & Shelving Strategy, providing clear recommendations for SKU rationalization, facings versus variety, out-of-stock analysis, planograms, game planning, SRP, and related initiatives. Supports Retailer and Customer Teams by utilizing PepsiCo capabilities to deliver promotion, pricing, and basket-building opportunities. Works closely with Account Management to translate Category Plans into strong Account Plans (AOP). Acts as the voice of the customer within the Dx team, securing a strong connection between in-market realities and Perfect Store channel strategies. Expert Advisor Role to Customers (External – 65%) Builds strategic partnerships with customers through best-in-class category management collaboration across channels. Develops and presents compelling selling stories highlighting customer, category, and market data, as well as relevant consumer and industry trends, to drive business results with retailers. Owns Customer Category Management engagement and/or Category Advisorship for specific PepsiCo categories, developing mutually agreed goals and executing against them using PepsiCo Category Management and Perfect Store fundamentals. Utilizes insights and analysis (in collaboration with the Advanced Analytics team) in customer meetings to review category fundamentals and identify opportunities to maximize sales and profitability for both the category and PepsiCo brands. Collaborates with Space Management teams to develop customer-specific planograms (POGs). Initiates and leads category management projects with customers to realize growth opportunities and deliver measurable results through improvements in assortment, shelf presentation, promotional effectiveness, and customer activation strategies. Provides proactive and reactive retail marketing mix recommendations to customers. Works directly with customers or indirectly with sales partners to present category plans, reviews, and growth opportunities. Qualifications Languages : Dutch and English FMCG knowledge: in-depth shopper insights and customer knowledge (retail). At least 10 years experience in FMCG, ideally in sales, catman, insights and/or shopper Thinking - External Perspective & Forward Thinking: Capability to analyse categories through all available sources of information so as to identify category strategic drivers for growth. Growth - Talent Development: Team leadership skills Relationship & Execution - Leadership to set the agenda, make projects and visions happen, be able to run multifunctional projects, be able to demonstrate influential impact at various levels and functions in the organisation and with customers. Being well organised is a must.