Category Manager

About us:

Devro is a global leader in the supply of collagen casings and films, used in a wide variety of sausages and other meat products. Our operational reach is international with manufacturing plants in Scotland, USA, Czech Republic, Australia and China. We employ over 2,000 people worldwide whose skills and knowledge range from chemical and electrical engineering to food technology and manufacturing.

About the role:

To help us realise our growth potential, we are looking to recruit a Category Manager.  Reporting to the Group Business Development Director, you will take overall responsibility for developing and managing the category strategy for Fresh, Processed or Co-ex collagen casings in line with Devro Group business strategy.  

The key duties and responsibilities of the role include:

• Support Sales in building robust and long term customer relationships, based on insight and expertise, translating this into strategies for customers that enhance performance; 
• Identify and pursue new significant opportunities in the categories in close collaboration with Sales;
• Collaborate with key internal and external stakeholders on category product development and management, leading category management projects to a successful delivery and optimised product ranges;
• Understand and act upon all significant market developments in categories globally;
• Devise long term product roadmaps and development strategies for product categories;
• Plan Category ranges, pricing and promotion across customer channels and customer segments;
• Manage profitability and revenue for Categories;
• Ensure new product launches meet customer needs as well as their demand plans and expectations.

You will have an interesting, challenging and varied workload, with opportunity to work on global scale alongside other experts and in various steering groups. You will be joining a team of professionals in Business Development, Product Development, R&D, Marketing, Product Application as well as Regulatory and External Affairs based in the UK and around the globe.  

About you 

To be successful, you will be degree qualified in a relevant field. Due to the scope of the role, a MBA would be advantageous, however not essential.  Further to academic qualifications, it is essential that you have demonstrable experience in a similar commercial role, ideally within Food Manufacturing, FMCG or other Retail business.  This experience should include significant exposure to strategy, sales and marketing where you have used your analytical skills to make commercial decisions that have increased revenue and profit.
You will have excellent interpersonal skills, being able to build profitable relationships with stakeholders at all levels, both internally as well as externally.  Further to this, you will have strong communication skills, being able to articulate your point verbally and in writing.  As a result of these things you will be comfortable influencing and negotiating as required.  You will be managing multiple pieces of work and as such, it is important that you are highly organised with good time management skills.
Due to the nature of the role you will be expected to be flexible with your time and standard duties and will require you to spend 1-2 weeks per month traveling and away from home.  A full driver’s licence is required.

Closing date:  23rd October

What next?

If this sounds like a role that you would be interested in, then we would love to hear from you.  

Please e-mail us a copy of your CV, along with a cover letter explaining the four or five key things that you could bring to the role. 
In return we offer a varied, interesting and challenging workload from day one.  You will have all of the support and guidance you need to thrive, yet you will have the opportunity to put your own mark on things.  

On top of a competitive salary, we offer and attractive benefits package