Category & Commercial Strategy Manager

You are responsible for the macro commercial strategy and activation across all specialty retail environments—including major brick-and-mortar accounts, independent retailers, and pureplay eCommerce platforms in Australia & New Zealand.

You are the commercial architect of our retail channel growth, operating at the intersection of sales and marketing. This is a highly analytical and commercial role where your insights and leadership directly drive revenue, profitability, and long-term category growth. You will:

• Act as the key bridge between Brand Management and the Customer Development Teams (CDTs)

• Own and translate the Category Vision and brand strategy into clear, actionable 7P plans across Retail Environments (REs)

• Shape and execute our 1-3 Retail Environment plans, including 7P’s strategy

• Safeguard our brand equity and P&L while driving sustainable market leadership

This is a highly analytical and commercial role where your insights and leadership directly drive revenue, profitability, and long-term category growth.

Responsibilities:

Strategic Channel Planning & Go-To-Market (GTM)

• Integrated Category Strategy & Vision

  • Partner closely with the Science Diet Brand team to ensure macro channel strategies, NPD pipelines, and campaign execution are perfectly aligned with core brand positioning, consumer insights, financial goals, and our Brand Growth Plan objectives.

  • Be the voice of our customers - translate the category opportunities into our brand opportunities

  • Own the formal Category Vision for Science Diet in ANZ, providing clear strategic direction across all Retail Environments (REs).

  • Lead the externalisation of the category narrative with priority customers to align execution, secure support, and reinforce Hill’s leadership in science-led pet nutrition.

• 7P Guidelines & Retail Environment Strategy

  • Translate the Category Vision into actionable 7P guidelines (People Journey, Product, Price, Promotion, Placement, POP, Persuasion) tailored by Retail Environment (e.g. Clinics, specialty retail, independent, eCommerce).

  • Orchestrate and support the delivery of major initiatives and ensure flawless execution of 7P guidelines to support the commercial plan and Brand Growth Plan.

• Revenue Growth Management

  • Drive Strategic Pricing and Volume Growth by leading category-level Revenue Growth Management (RGM) initiatives.

  • Partner with Brand, Digital and CDTs to create seamless ODG experiences across the commercial organisation.

  • Own pricing changes end to end: analytics, stakeholder engagement, narrative development, execution planning, and performance tracking.

• Market Diagnosis & Portfolio Health

  • Partner with Brand team to develop the 1–3 year Category portfolio strategy for the total Science Diet business, including Retail Environment - specific opportunities (e.g. differentiated assortment, pack formats, promotional packs).

  • Market Trend Analysis: Conduct deep monthly retail data analysis (using Unify, Tableau and portal insights) to track distribution gaps, average selling prices, value/volume growth, and category mix and white space opportunities.

  • Competitor Benchmarking: Actively monitor competitor in-store and online strategies, benchmarking our channel share of voice and adjusting the 7P plans to protect our market leadership.

  • Act as the figurehead for portfolio simplification and discontinuation, ensuring a clean, productive range.

Operational Excellence & Performance Management

• Lead key commercial events that occur throughout the calendar (e.g., RGM workshops, Customer planning including the roll-up of CDT estimates (Consensus), Budget Review/MYR preparation, etc.).

• Partner with Customer Development Teams (CDTs) on major customer-specific activations and initiatives that support the achievement of both long-term category growth and near-term performance vs. targets.

• Support the seamless execution of Brand Growth Plans in the Retail Environment (RE), working through the Joint Value Planning process.

• Report back on comprehensive category performance broken down by subcategory, Retail Environment (RE), and individual Customer.

• Manage the monthly discipline process by delivering performance reports, identifying key opportunities, and recommending necessary corrective actions.

• Lead or support special projects and team initiatives as needed to align with evolving goals and drive organisational success.

• Lead or support special projects and team initiatives as needed to align with evolving goals and drive organisational success.

Required Qualifications:

• You have a Bachelor's degree and 5+ years of commercial, trade marketing, or category management experience within FMCG or the retail pet industry. You’ve worked across multiple retail environments and have a proven track record of best in class execution.

• You bring a high degree of confidence in understanding and managing P&Ls & how powerful RGM is. You know how channel levers impact the bottom line and are comfortable using BI data and business analytics to protect margins and drive profitable growth for everyone.

• You are highly confident working with syndicated data platforms (Unify, Quantium), and have a strong understanding of how digital and physical retail environments connect.

• Genuinely curious, you love digging into channel dynamics, taking total ownership of the brand, and celebrating shared team wins.

Preferred Qualifications (3-5 bullet points):

• Bachelor degree

• Min 5 years experience in FMCG including commercial, trade marketing and category management.

• Comfortable with Google Suite and/or excel

• Must have required work permits/visas

#LI-VP5