Category Manager

Overview

At PepsiCo Romania, we’re more than beloved brands — we’re a united team of approximately 1,400 colleagues working together, as One PepsiCo, to bring consumers the products they enjoy every day. With over 20 years of local presence and modern operations across our two manufacturing sites in Popești‑Leordeni and Dragomirești, our portfolio includes global brands such as Pepsi, Mirinda, 7UP, Lay’s and Doritos, as well as local products tailored to the preferences of Romanian consumers.

We are guided by the principles of the One PepsiCo Way — working as one team, with a strong focus on the consumer, performance and integrity. We are stronger together, combining our capabilities to deliver meaningful impact.

If you’re ready to take the next step in your career and unlock your potential, explore the role below.

The CatMan Manager is responsible to support & lead specific category management initiatives across channels and categories (beverages, snacks) by translating complex data into actionable insights that can lead to category growth whilst engaging cross-function internal teams and external stakeholders to deliver the projects.

The role’s objective is to actively contribute to the development of category strategies by helping set in-store guidelines and influencing cross-functional teams to unlock sustainable growth, with extra focus on effective range, space and visibility for top customers. Elevate beverages and snacks portfolio in the market for both OT and TT.

Responsibilities

• Category Strategy & Performance: Support the implementation of category plans, ensuring alignment with the company’s strategic goals and customer demands. Identify growth opportunities and lead specific initiatives tailored to shopper preferences to drive revenue, margin and market share within assigned categories or channels.
• Data Analysis & Integration: Analyze multiple sources of data (shopper, consumer, in-market performance etc.) to identify specific category opportunities across categories. Leverage data-driven insights to recommend tactical category development plans that will map the consumer needs and local market dynamics. Translate complex data into actionable insights for each customer.
• Innovation Planning: Partner wirth marketing and sales to translate innovation concept into quantified business cases (volume bottom-up according to channel strategy, assortment gaps, opportunities by account). Work closely with sales, marketing, supply chain, commercialization to validate assumptions based on market context. Map category plans with the customers’ strategies. Supports delivery of volumes bottom-up for all the upcoming innovations.
• Portfolio & Assortment Management : Support local initiatives to ensure optimal assortment and space effectiveness across categories. Understand drivers of performance, define & deploy effective assortment by account and by category (HERO, MHL strategy). Match performance to space allocation by defining clear in-store guidelines, better availability of best-sellers, enhanced shelf segmentation.
• Strong cross-function collaboration: Closely work with various functions (Sales, Perfect Store, Finance, Trade, Shopper Insights, Marketing). Educate internal stakeholders on how to leverage the available data in order to build impactful joint business planning and strong customer plans. Key contributor to annual business planning that include Perfect Store execution plans & strategies by account.
• Sales Team Support: Become a trusted advisor for the sales internal teams. Equip them with necessary data, insights and comprehensive selling stories to unlock business opportunities and successfully execute category initiatives, including innovations execution recommendations.
• Customer Collaboration: Maintain strong working relationships with key customer contacts. Collaborate regularly to drive category initiative and identify growth opportunities. Contribute to unlock mutually beneficial opportunities by participating to joint business planning process across channels and categories.
• Revenue Management Support: Track category performance and collaborate with the RGM team to ensure that the assortment strategy is in line with the promotional & profitability objectives.

Qualifications

• BA required in Business, Marketing, Economics or a related field.
• 3-5+ years of experience in Category Management, Insights, Marketing and/or Strategy experience within the FMCG industry.
• Analytical Acumen – ability to translate raw numbers into clear business insights. Experience with data tools (Excel, Power BI etc.). CatMan tools expertise is a strong advantage.
• Strategic/ Commercial Mindset – proven ability to integrate data from multiple qualitative & quantitative sources (retail audit data, HH panel) to develop actionable recommendations and long-term category vision. Experience with in-market performance data platforms is a must (e.g. Nielsen Discover).
• Strong management & cooperation skills.
• Presentation & relationship-building skills. Excellent communication skills.
• Stakeholder management: Ability to effectively influence peers & senior commercial executives through sound analysis and relevant story telling.
• Create and maintain relationships throughout the organization. Align internally cross-functional teams.
• High attention to details.
• Proactive problem-solving.
• Experience in Shopper Insights is a strong plus for the job.
• Intellectualy constant curiosity to drive detailed analysis of the business and uncover hidden-gem opportunities.