VP Category Strategy and Insights

BODYARMOR Sports Nutrition (BASN) is a fast-paced, dynamic environment where brand builders work together with the goal of becoming innovative game-changers in the world of sports and active hydration. Extreme passion and teamwork are the essentials of being a successful member of the BODYARMOR Sports Nutrition team - which consists of BODYARMOR and POWERADE brands. BODYARMOR Sports Nutrition exudes an entrepreneurial culture backed by the resources and insights of one of the world's most iconic companies , The Coca-Cola Company , which acquired BODYARMOR in 2021. This unique environment gives employees the ability to move quickly, exceed expectations, develop valuable relationships, and have fun while we work to achieve our goal of becoming #1 in Sports Hydration.

BODYARMOR is looking for a VP, Category Strategy & Insights to join our team.

The role is responsible for driving category insights and expertise, delivering sales analytics & reporting, shaping our selling strategy, and leading consumer & shopper research at BODYARMOR Sports Nutrition. This role leverages various knowledge sources and systems to provide fact-based insights to influence decision making at the highest levels, shape corporate strategy, understand trends and competitive set, and lead results through powerful internal and external story telling.

This senior level department leader must lead by example - Providing inspirational and supportive leadership to the team, with the keen ability of identifying individual strengths and utilizing those strengths to facilitate growth within the organization.

They must demonstrate natural curiously and hunger to win, and the ability to leverage industry trends to unlock growth strategies. In a fast-moving environment, they must respond well under pressure at an executive level, while leading a high performing team of 17 individuals through change and growth for the future. The ultimate objective of this role is to give sales and other internal teams the tools and resources they need to overachieve against their goals by providing the insights to make effective decisions and successfully lead our BASN brands into the future.

This role will report to the Chief Operating Officer.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategic and Tactical Leadership

• Responsible for support and external influence to bottlers and customers at senior levels of their organizations.

• Weave together insights from all knowledge resources and systems that includes data from scanned consumption, shopper panel, POS, bottler reported, manufacturer reported, etc - to provide well-informed, fact-based thought leadership and to help shape short- and long-term business strategy.

• Lead efforts to publish standardized business performance reporting for daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly distribution and continue to push for improved execution of reporting and analytics

• Provide ongoing analysis of category, platform, brand, pack, and flavor trends using company shipments, distributor depletions and retail scan & shopper panel data

• Lead selling strategy effort to support successful sell-in of top corporate priorities, and influence retailer and bottler decision-making with the goal of getting more than our fair share of space and support. This is executed through development of selling tools to influence how retailers and bottlers need to change to win in a complicated and competitive retail landscape filled with macro trend shifts and changing consumer & shopper needs. The selling tools include selling deck templates and turnkey category management tools that speak to broad trends, enabling them to be tailored for each customer/bottler to offer relevant insights and local recommendations.

• Lead development and implementation of primary reporting platform (Tableau) to support broad real time insight updates for the sales team, senior management team and other departments. This platform collects and synthesizes a variety of data sources that include depletions, scanned consumption, shopper panel, trade spend, shipments and other financial data.

• Lead Look of Success (LOS) and Order of Entry process to maximize corporate revenue and profit, support company priorities and drive category sales. This process is done leveraging a variety of inputs from scanned consumption, shopper panel and POS sourced data.

Cross Functional Partnership and Leadership

• Work with management and other functional teams to deliver and evolve insight and analytical reporting based on changing needs of the departments.

• Leverage insights gathered from sales and marketing teams, combined with data from sales insight tools, to diagnose product performance issues and form well-informed solution recommendations.

• Deliver and communicate tailored strategy and marketing insights to provide critical and up-to-date analytics to influence decision making regarding corporate strategy, innovation and consumer communication.

• Lead research efforts in alignment with sales and marketing leadership to learn about - and evaluate -- the constantly changing consumer and shopper landscape. These findings will be used to influence how to evolve our products and communication efforts to ensure effective alignment to consumer and shopper needs.

• Develop and implement retail and bottler sales training programs to improve field team capabilities on selling tools and resources. Implementation offers a tailored program by sales function to ensure training and topic relevancy.

• Oversee Category Strategy and Insights team effort to coordinate and lead routine calls with sales leadership to review brand trends, category trends and retail opportunities to determine necessary action steps to address issues or capitalize on opportunities.

• Oversee Category Strategy and Insights team effort in working with Business Planning team to analyze and provide insights into BODYARMOR trade activities and spend at bottler and customer level to inform national price pack plan strategy.

• Partner with Shopper Marketing and Business Planning to evaluate trade and shopper program ROI and success/failure based on clear KPI's

Communication and Influence

• Lead department as an inspirational leader, investing in development and career pathing to maintain high levels of engagement and growth.

• Get the most of the team by educating, training and pushing individuals to strive for the highest work quality and expand skillsets in order to maximize team's positive influence on the business, and build benchstrength with future company leaders.

• Participate in key customer meetings as category expert, and offer robust fact-based arguments as to why customers or bottlers should act on our recommendations.

• Lead insight package development effort which highlights category/industry trends and shifts to influence key decision making.

• Provide fact-based insight content for company and partner meetings.

• Lead knowledge provider contract negotiation to maximize partnership value for BODYARMOR by identifying our requirements and budget and not being afraid to walk away if our needs are not met. Contract scopes range from $2M to $20k annually.

• Evaluate new tools to bring new approaches to the team as part of continual improvement process.

• Leverage relationships with Coca-Cola counterparts and extended team to ensure BODYARMOR is leveraging all available Coke insight tools and resources .

• Ensure team is implementing quality control protocol and providing highest level of data accuracy and integrity throughout reporting and selling tools.

REQUIREMENTS:

• BA/BS degree required

• 12+ yrs experience in sales, marketing, category management, shopper insights & strategy required

• Location base within the NY Metro area or willingness to relocate required

• Team player with exceptional leadership, communication and management qualities

• Reliable, hard-working & proactive team player with can-do attitude

• Demonstrated capacity for big picture, strategic thinking, creative thinking and attention to detail

• Expert technical skills - Scan systems, Panel systems, trade funds management software, Excel, PowerPoint, word, etc.

• Field sales experience a plus

• 25-30% Travel required by car and plane

• Relocation assistance available

What We'll Do For You

• Innovative Marketing: Be part of a company known for its cutting-edge marketing and innovation. Our marketing strategies have made us a leader in the beverage industry, and you'll have the opportunity to learn from and contribute to our success.

• Iconic Brands: Work with some of the most recognized and beloved brands in the world. Our portfolio includes over 200 brands that are enjoyed by consumers worldwide.

• Industry Leaders: Collaborate with leaders in the industry. Our team is composed of professionals who are experts in their fields, providing an environment where you can learn, grow, and make a significant impact.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class.