Category Strategy Director Vereinigtes Königreich

Job Title

Category Strategy Director – Personal Care (Deodorants & Skin Cleansing)

Blackfriars, London

Personal Care is a large, complex, global business with market‑leading power brands across Deodorants and Skin Cleansing. Winning requires sharp category market‑making, stronger innovation choices, and an operating rhythm that enables speed and execution quality across a highly matrixed network (Global Brand teams, BUs, and top markets).

• Strategic Category Leadership – Define the long‑term vision, set growth priorities and identify the big bets that shape future categories.
• Portfolio Strategy & Stewardship – Drive strategic portfolio choices that maximise penetration, premiumisation and superiority across markets.
• Insights‑ and Foresights‑Led Growth – Translate consumer, shopper and market foresights into actionable growth opportunities and category‑shaping plans.
• Influence & Stakeholder Leadership – Orchestrate and influence a complex global ecosystem across BGs, Markets, R&D, CMI, Finance and Customer Teams to land strategy and unlock growth.
• Business Performance Management – Monitor global category performance, identify risks and opportunities, and recommend corrective interventions to deliver sustainable, profitable growth.

• Shape and drive category strategy for Deodorants and Skin Cleansing, translating outside‑in consumer, market and customer understanding into clear strategic choices and market‑making plans.
• Lead category disruption and growth opportunities, identifying emerging trends and whitespace (in partnership with CMI) and converting them into actionable initiatives and big bets.
• Partner with Global Brand teams and top markets to align category market‑making with brand strategies and ensure strategies are activated through market plans and execution.
• Strengthen innovation funnel sufficiency and governance for the categories—ensuring robust pipeline health, quality of ideas and disciplined progression through the funnel.
• Management of 2 Direct Reports (Category Strategy Managers) and a total team of 6.
• Drive excellence in unmissable superiority by improving clarity of superiority drivers, accuracy of tracking and follow‑through on gaps with relevant teams.
• Run strong category performance cadence: conduct market/category analysis, monitor performance and key indicators, and initiate corrective actions with brand and market teams.
• Enable integrated planning and operating rhythm across stakeholders by contributing to core global planning processes (incl. integrated business planning), ensuring decisions, inputs and outputs land with quality and on time.
• Build a collaborative, inclusive way of working across a complex global network—connecting teams, raising strategic quality and accelerating delivery through influence.
• Coach and develop talent across the category community through mentoring, capability building and role-modelling high standards of strategic and execution excellence.

• Proven experience in category management, category strategy, brand strategy or brand marketing, with a track record of driving growth and innovation.
• Strong strategic thinking and analytical capability, with a consistently data‑driven approach to decision‑making.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence in a complex, matrixed, global stakeholder environment.
• Strong consumer and market understanding, with passion for solving consumer needs through desirable, superior products and innovation.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, able to create clarity, alignment and momentum across levels and geographies.
• A mindset that is open, adaptable and resilient, able to embrace ambiguity and translate it into structured plans and execution.
• Experience working in or with global roles / diverse markets (preferred), with the ability to navigate different market contexts and business realities.