Senior Category Advisor, Walmart

At Lindt, we are a global fast-growing consumer goods company, enchanting the world with premium chocolate. We are driven by our passion for excellence and go the extra mile ensuring that every Lindt experience is nothing short of exceptional. Our collective efforts are geared towards making a positive impact, not only in the world of premium chocolate but also in the lives of our employees, customers, and communities. Our company embraces a culture defined by the core values of Excellence, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Responsibility, and Collaboration, fostering a dynamic and collaborative environment where these principles drive our success.

Position Purpose:

Reporting to the Director of Category Management, the Senior Category Advisor-Walmart will own the category management relationship with Walmart. This role will drive growth at Walmart for the Premium chocolate category, leveraging shopper insights, market trends, consumption data and category assessments to make fact-based recommendations direct to the Walmart buying team. This role will be critical in supporting Walmart across all Seasons as well as in Food Gifting, delivering category reviews, making planogram and assortment recommendations and overall helping Walmart to optimize the chocolate shopper experience.

• Advisorship of the Premium chocolate category at Walmart responsible for providing strategic and tactical recommendations to Walmart buyers on the Distribution, Shelving, Merchandising, and Price partitions to improve Seasonal and Gifting category performance. Provide strategic guidance on Everyday Premium chocolate category.
• Utilize relevant information data sources such as Retail Link, Luminate, Circana or Nielsen and other secondary sources to collect, analyze, interpret and report out insights and recommendations to accelerate growth.
• Proactively identify emerging shopper trends, competitive threats and customer opportunities leveraging all available resources making fact-based recommendations to Walmart.
• Develop strategic planogram recommendations to improve shopability, conversion and space to sales leveraging JDA ProSpace and other applicable tools and research.
• Support Walmart ad hoc requests for data / information.
• Develop and lead regular customer meetings and category reviews
• Develop strong working relationships with Walmart's Buyers and Walmart cross functional partners.
• Provides support to Walmart Buyers in developing an integrated category strategy.

Qualifications & Requirements:

Skills & Knowledge:

• Category Management & analytical experience in CPG (minimum of 5 years)
• Extensive knowledge of data sources - Circana or Nielsen; Retail Link/Luminate; Numerator; Household Panel (minimum of 5 years)
• JDA experience required
• Deep understanding of Walmart's modular execution processes
• Advanced computer skills; advanced knowledge of Excel and PowerPoint
• Strong analytical interpretation skills and objective analytical power - using data to make precise and objective assessments of business issues.
• Ability to work independently to complete projects in a timely fashion
• Excellent written and oral communication and adeptness in story-telling
• Ability to problem solve and manage competing deadlines
• Highly resourceful with data and a passion for connecting the dots.

Education:

• Bachelor's Degree required; Master's degree preferred in related field.

Other Requirements:

• Up to 20% domestic travel