Category Development Senior Manager

Description

At Basamh Group, our mission is to grow people and companies by empowering individuals and fostering collaborative relationships to achieve sustainable success. Backed by over 75 years of experience, we’ve built a strong, consumer-centric ecosystem serving the MEA region. Our excellence in distribution is driven by Basamh Trading Company (BTC) in retail and Specialized Food Services (SFS) in HORECA. GoodyCo leads our efforts in marketing and brand building, while Thokoman Foods anchors our manufacturing capabilities.

Guided by our core values of true ownership, passion to grow, transparency and family spirit, we are committed to establishing long-term partnerships with our people and all those we work with. We aim to strengthen our network, uplift our communities, and build a legacy of homegrown success stories that inspire the leaders of tomorrow.

Job Overview

To lead and drive the long-term growth and competitiveness of assigned categories across KSA by owning category strategy, volume and budget planning, trade investment effectiveness, and cross-functional execution, ensuring sustainable business performance and value creation.

Key Responsibilities

Role Responsibilities:

Category Strategy & Leadership

• Own and lead the end-to-end category strategy across KSA, ensuring alignment with company business priorities and long-term growth objectives.
• Act as the senior category expert, with deep understanding of category dynamics, shopper behavior, channels, and competitive landscape.
• Define category growth drivers, strategic priorities, and execution frameworks to maximize market performance and competitive advantage.
• Lead the development, deployment, and governance of category strategies across channels and regions.

Business & Financial Ownership

• Own national category volume, budget, and profitability targets, ensuring delivery against agreed business objectives.
• Lead trade investment strategy and optimization, ensuring strong ROI and disciplined budget management.
• Drive continuous improvement in forecast accuracy, stock efficiency, and sell-out performance in collaboration with Demand & Supply.
• Identify risks and opportunities, proactively proposing corrective actions and growth initiatives.

Cross-Functional Integration & Execution Excellence

• Lead cross-functional collaboration with Brand, Sales, Demand, Supply, Finance, and Operations to ensure flawless execution of category plans.
• Ensure strong alignment between category plans, brand initiatives, channel strategies, building blocks, and KPIs.
• Oversee development of trade stories, launch frameworks, promotional mechanics, and in-market execution standards.
• Champion best practices, success models, and insights reapplication across categories and channels.

Stakeholder & Market Leadership

• Serve as the primary senior point of contact for internal stakeholders on category performance, insights, and strategic direction.
• Provide distributors and external partners with category intelligence and guidance to enhance distribution, availability, and execution quality.

Represent category agenda in senior forums, reviews, and planning cycles, influencing decision-making at leadership level.

Strategy & Planning:

• Collaborate in the development and execution of the Division’s ABCs and OKRs, ensuring alignment with other Functions' leadership.
• Make critical decisions that support the Division's strategic and tactical direction.
• Develop plans for respective functions/teams, providing inputs that align with and support the
• Division’s goals and objectives.
• Delegate tactical responsibilities to emerging leaders within the Division, enhancing succession planning.
• Measure and track relevant OKRs and metrics to ensure goal achievement and take corrective actions when necessary.

People Management:

• Set clear performance objectives, offer necessary support, and regularly evaluate and provide feedback to direct reports for continuous development.
• Actively participate in the identification and recruitment of key talent for the function.
• Provide clear direction, prioritize tasks, delegate responsibilities, and monitor workflow.
• Create opportunities for team members to contribute to improvement, innovation, and knowledge-sharing initiatives.

Budget Management:

• Own the budgeting cycle and proactively contribute to the budgeting process.
• Manage departments effectively within budget, providing accurate reports on progress and challenges encountered.
• Formulate strategies that drive positive financial impact while mitigating financial and operational risks.

Stakeholders' Relations:

• Cultivate and maintain strong relationships with key internal and external stakeholders.
• Ensure stakeholders are kept informed of relevant actions and decisions.

Governance and Resilience

• Adhere to policies, procedures, and processes to ensure consistent and controlled execution of daily tasks.
• Contribute to identifying opportunities for continuous improvement of processes and practices to enhance effectiveness.
• Foster a high-performance environment and actively promote company values.

Minimum Requirements

• Required: Bachelor’s degree in related field.
• 6 to 8 years in Sales, Category management and or Trade marketing experience
• MS Office Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)
• Leadership skills
• Strong negotiation skills
• Organization skills
• People management skills
• Influencing skills
• Strong communication skills
• Excellent numeracy skills

Working Environment

At Basamh Group, we pride ourselves on attracting talented individuals by offering dynamic and rewarding professional opportunities that inspire growth and innovation. We are deeply committed to fostering a culture of growth by supporting continuous development through hands-on learning, comprehensive online resources, interactive training, and personalized coaching. Guided by our core value of family spirit, we cultivate an environment where every individual feels valued, supported, and empowered to thrive. We ensure our people contribute to our collective success while finding fulfillment and pride in being part of the Basamh Group family.