Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:

• Supports the Director Business Unit and Senior Manager Category in executing the Europe short and medium-term objectives for the respective category, specifically responsible for delivering across all KPIs.
• Implement global strategies in a locally relevant way for Europe, considering different consumer needs and distribution channels.
• Supports in influencing the development of global strategies through providing clear and relevant commercial input in terms of consumer needs, market particularities, and channel needs.
• Collaborate regularly with global counter parts to identify business opportunities in the market and to maximize net sales and profitability (within global and Europe strategic parameters)

Key Responsibilities:  

• Responsible for range selection and alignment process within the parameters set by the Europe CTC Range Architecture team to meet the KPI’s
• Responsible for all aspects of category management in the range including segmentation to meet all KPIs incl. efficiency, productivity, overlap, top line, margin
• Accountable, in particular, for pricing of the range, including a plan to harmonize pricing across Europe, to meet the KPI’s
• Accountable for supporting Global and Country sell-ins to both retailers and assets where required
• Accountable for the input into Global to get the best possible sell-in tools for the category and create augmented tools where required with Category Brand Comms
• Responsible for Commercial Input into Global, and creating and embedding a process with the Countries to ensure their input is made
• Responsible for all KPI reporting of the Category
• Accountable along with the BU Analyst for any scenario analysis required relating to the Category
• Accountable for inputting into the overall seasonal, year and SBP for Category
• Understands the European consumer retail environment including distribution points, share of buy, competitor ranges and pricing strategies
• Support major product launches and presentations providing necessary sales support to ensure an effective sell-in launch process
• Provide a suitable framework for the performance management of the team, coaching and developing junior team members to meet requirements of their role

Key Relationships:

• Global BU (PM & Merch)
• AKA CTC, DTC assortment and Cluster CTC Managers
• Europe Demand Planning
• Europe BU Leadership team (VP & Director)
• Europe BU Brand Communication
• Europe Finance
• Europe Sales Development

KPIs:

• Net Sales
• Go in Margin
• (Standard) Margin
• Brand KPI’s

Category Market share – top 5 markets
Category & Range efficiency; in particular global range components

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• High professional maturity
• Highly collaborative with strong communication skills
• High influencing skills and ability to make fact-based decisions
• Strong analytical skills
• Structured, organized and process-orientated
• Cross functional marketing knowledge and market experience in sport and/or fashion/lifestyle categories.
• Consumer-focused with product and ranging experience with an understanding of balancing brand and commercial aspects to build channel specific GTM solutions
• Previous experience in category management/merchandising/ranging
• Strong business acumen, ability to assume a broader perspective (cross-markets/global)
• Attention to detail as error in analysis will have crucial impact on business
• Ability to work effectively within a team environment and under pressure
• Strong organizational skills
• Flexibility to travel internationally
• Strong engaging presentation style
• Intermediate to advanced skills in MS Office
• Fluent in English
• Additional language is an advantage

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:

• University degree in business preferred, ideally with marketing and sales focus or equivalent professional experience
• Merchandising/ cross-functional marketing and/or sales experience experience: 3 years
• Experience in a European market is required