JOB SUMMARY

Sysco is a Multibillion-dollar E-commerce, B to B food service business and the global leader in selling, marketing, and supplying food products to restaurants, businesses, health care locations, education, travel and food service management around the world. We do business in over 90 countries internationally and this role will bring customer centric solutions to the markets for Sysco.

The Senior Director, Category Management leadership role is responsible for the Development, planning and execution of center-led merchandising category activities including assortment strategy, supplier relationships, sourcing, profits & losses, informing pricing and promotional strategy, and field execution. The position is responsible for leading and driving the profitable growth of the merchandising categories up to and including designing and implementing the category management processes and approaches for driving sales and gross profit improvement leveraging our product portfolio. Proactively work cross-functionally, especially with Local Field Merchandising, Pricing, Branding, Supply Chain and Sales to identify, diagnose, and mitigate potential barriers to the execution of merchandising initiatives. The leadership role will also leave a team (also known as “Pods”) consisting of ~20 direct reports (per Pod) comprised of Directors, Sr. Managers/Managers, Sr. Sourcing Managers/Managers, Product Managers and Product Specialists. Therefore, coaching, motivation, and development will be critical. The Senior Director(s) will focus on maximizing profitability/revenue for a categories of consumer products they’re accountable for by developing strategies aligning manufacturer pricing, selection, and promotions for the category with the retailer’s role/profit margin for the category

RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategic Planning and Execution of Category Merchandising Strategies:

Develop and Lead strategic planning and execution across merchandising functions to drive high priority commercial initiatives as noted below. Maintain a dynamic portfolio of sales and GP$ (i.e. profits & losses) growth opportunities, proactively identifying, sizing, and prioritizing new initiatives as well as identifying risks & mitigation strategies to PGM and overall plan delivery. Be accountable to P&L performance versus plan for a discrete portion of Sysco’s USBL business. Maintain a deep understanding of performance against key internal and external metrics to ensure visibility and profitable growth. Deliver goals in PGM, Assortment, Sustainability, and other key initiatives. Leads and promotes the Partnership Growth Management Process to supports sales and share growth while delivering leveraged gross profit growth. Collects and synthesizes insights from different sources (for example: supplier, market, NPD, etc.) to develop category strategies while also taking appropriate action to develop a relevant national, regional, and local assortment. Collaborates and aligns with Sourcing partners on the most effective sourcing approach

Broker (Category Producers/Suppliers) Sourcing & Performance Management:

Develop strategies to fully leverage third party sales teams (brokers, dedicated supplier reps) to execute Sysco’s assortment and growth strategies. In scope are all aspects of performance management including strategic broker network partner relationship management, measurement & metrics, goal setting & incentives, field sales & merchandising engagement and performance review processes. Support negotiations with suppliers. Engage merchandising and sales leadership to address issues and risks. Establish strong lines of cross-functional collaboration to create process alignment and enable appropriate resource allocation. Ensure effective field execution and utilize two-way communication best practices to identify and address process improvement opportunities. Promotes and champions suppliers to subscribe to Partnership Growth Insights to feed regular strategic planning meetings to measure share growth performance, identify and prioritize key gaps and execute center-led approaches for continuous improvement. Monitor NPD data and supplier service levels; prioritize action plans to drive results and a differentiated response for Sysco. Create an environment which fosters mutual market share growth, innovation, greater productivity, issue resolution in alignment with the field. Engage supplier broker networks for additional resources to enable field execution and training.

Gross Profit Recovery Strategy & Execution:

Define scope, investigate and prioritize Gross Profit recovery efforts for a defined group of opportunity levers, including supplier and customer agreements. The work includes the investigation, strategy development, resourcing, execution and delivery of benefit. Proactively identifying, sizing, and prioritizing new initiatives is a key part of this role. Strong cross-functional expertise will be required to effectively navigate between GSC Merchandising, Shared Business Services, National Sales, Business Technology & Finance teams. Analyze weekly/monthly finance reports to appraise case sales and gross profit performance utilizing internal and external analytic resources to conduct deep dives. Determine root causes and develop action plans to mitigate losses in share or negative trends; prepare executive summaries.

CMU Strategy & Execution:

Engage with key cross-functional stakeholders in Merchandising, Category Analytics, Sysco Brand, Trade Management and National Sales to facilitate national customers in purchasing a more common assortment in order to deliver annual growth and margin targets. Includes priority target identification, development of tools, approaches and playbooks to help enable successful conversion and penetration. Strong connectivity with Sysco Brand team will be required to develop a proactive approach to national customer assortment management. Assume an “activist” role in identifying, escalating, and addressing execution roadblocks and delays. Develops pricing strategy to drive market share and incremental profit opportunities while remaining market relevant.
Proactively engages with Revenue Management to identify pricing strategies that are driving share growth; aligns and executes measures to address pricing issues.

Team Management and Direct Report Development

Leads and develops the culture of an empowered team that is aligned to achieving goals through cross-functional and direct engagement.
Leverages the Sysco career development roadmap as a guide and coaches direct reports through their CMP and individual development plan (IDP).
Consistently embraces change, leads efforts to role model change and its benefits.
Creates an environment that welcomes regular, open two-way communication and acts upon feedback

Education Preferred:

Bachelor’s Degree in Business or related field preferred

Education Required:

Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experience in lieu of degree sufficient to successfully perform essential job functions required.

Experience Required:

Merchandising expertise in the operational/field setting.

9+ years management/professional experience required. Significant category management, merchandising and/or operations experience within a retail, wholesale or distribution environment preferred

Experience Preferred:

10+ years management/professional experience required. Significant category management, merchandising and/or operations experience within a retail, wholesale or distribution environment

Multi-functional field experience, GSC merchandising experience

P&L ownership

Technical Skills and Abilities:

Planning, Organizing, and Execution Skills

Possesses a deep understanding and demonstrated capability for strategic planning, process design, portfolio management, and execution
Ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-paced environment, adapting to shifting priorities and dynamic deadlines
Willingness to question antiquated or overly manual processes and identify opportunities to streamline and accelerate
Deep curiosity for the food business, which results in being an industry expert on the products in scope; includes understanding of innovation, key players, and trends

Communication

Strong communicator who can design impactful presentations to cross-functional teams, customers, suppliers and executive leadership
Demonstrates well-developed influencing skills with the ability to easily connect in a credible manner with field and headquarter leadership teams
Organizationally savvy and able to appropriately tailor messages and mediums, synchronize, socialize, and cascade communications
Able to establish credibility quickly with senior leaders in order to engage, push back, and encourage
Ability to build and maintain strong cross-functional relationships
Able to drive consensus among key stakeholders with diverse needs and interests
Ability to coach and mentor junior merchandising colleagues to be successful in their current and future roles

Analytics

Expert in business measurement definition and tracking (e.g. KPIs)
Possesses a strong general business acumen, including full Sysco P&L fluency and understanding of what levers can be impacted by Merchandising
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills; lets data drive action

Decision Making Authority – made fully independent

Identification and prioritization of merchandising process changes and improvements
Comfortable with ambiguity and willingness to make decisions

Decision Making Authority – made with review and approval

Identification and prioritization of Merchandising Strategic Initiatives
Cross-functional strategy development and execution

Sysco

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