Senior Manager Go To Market / Category Lead

Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:

Drive and ensure business success for dedicated Category (Football) through the development and execution of a robust Category Go-To- (GTM) Market plan for East Europe, within the strategic framework set by the European and global Business Units. Act as Category expert and key contact for Category in East Europe (Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, Baltics) and own Category GTM plans end to end.

Key Responsibilities:  

GTM (Go-to-market):

Deliver a complete Category GTM proposition, local assortments per account, local category growth plan (GTM plan) in line with overall company objectives for dedicated product division; Category GTM plan contains product, distribution across all countries and commercial channels, communication, activation tools and sports marketing from a hyperlocal perspective.

• Coordinate, set up, execute and review the GTM Category plan for East Europe on an ongoing base
• Represent the brand and the respective Business Unit internally and externally
• Strategically support and input into Europe Business Unit on local ranging and forecasting topics (such as data, mark-up, pricing maintenance, segmentation, allocation, etc.)
• Develop Category consumer profiles

• Provide input into SMU of local key accounts
• Steer the Marketplace conversations for growth in the category (incl. Own retail, ecom and AKA accounts like Zalando or Decathlon)

Collaboration & Process:

• Acts as key contact person for Sales and cross functional marketing teams regarding Category product, activation and other GTM topics  
• Act as captain of driving growth of the category in the local Marketplace
• Develop Category plans and drive handover to Sales
• Steer and handover the category direction and seasonal plans to Sales and Marketing teams during seasonal milestones
• Create and present specific promo ranges and product offers in alignment with Europe Business Unit together with Sports Marketing
• Ensures an efficient execution of the given sample order process & on target/budget
• Engage with a x-functional group of Category experts from different marketing & sales teams (“category/master-groups”) to drive the review and steering of the zone GTM plan and process for the Category
• Be a Pro-active ambassador for the Category and expert of the Category drivers in the marketplace

Commercial & Analytics:

• Demonstrate a “full marketplace” attitude (ALL countries & channels: DTC, WHS, X-border accounts) and stays in close exchange with the relevant Alliance Key Accounts teams
• Drive the successful sell-in process (from Category input, over pre-lines to sell-in meetings of identified strategic accounts)
• Develop relevant distribution and segmentation strategies to successfully manage key franchises in the zone (MRA tiering, Allocation)
• Use available market data to build dedicated product division plans (e.g. NPD data, Share of Search, market insights, sales data)
• Maintain regular analytics on the sell-in and sell-through performance of respective category (analytical support from Finance team)
• Give input to European Business Units on country price-grouping and submit requests exception throughout the pricing process

Leadership:

• Ability to lead and develop direct reports, from a functional and horizontal perspective
• Ability to create a positive workplace culture that leads to collective success as a team and organization, beyond the area of responsibility in GTM
• Living and representing the leadership behaviors that are expected at adidas
• Incorporating leadership framework elements into daily actions

Key Relationships:

• Cluster Central Europe SLT & their 1st lines
• Brand activation & Sports Marketing teams
• Sales, AKA & DTC
• European BU
• Cluster MOPS
• Business & Sales Development
• Finance teams

KPIs:

• Net Sales
• Net Margin
• Go In Margin
• Sell out
• Market share development
• Share of search

Knowledge, skills and abilities:

• Consumer focus with deep product and range knowledge
• Strong product, assortment knowledge and experience how to drive growth in a product category
• Excellent understanding of the balanced relationship between brand and commercial aspects to develop distribution-channel-specific GTM solutions
• Strong organizational and convincing presentation skills
• Passionate about sports, preferably Football specific with knowledge of the sport
• Pro- active (engaging & impact-oriented) mindset, ability to think end-to-end
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with different international cultures
• Business mindset: Very good numerical and analytical skills, experience in finance
• Good experience to manage projects on cross-functional level
• Ability to travel, domestic or international, as required
• Manager with advanced cross functional marketing knowledge and market experience in sport and/or fashion/lifestyle categories
• Passionate about sports & fashion

Requisite Education and Experience/Minimum Qualifications 

• University degree in business, ideally with marketing and sales focus or equivalent professional experience
• 6-8 years of Merchandising Experience, cross-functional marketing and/or sales experience

• Fluency in English (written and spoken)

• IT skills: MsOffice (Excel and PowerPoint - advanced)

• Competencies also for hybrid teams (remote teams)
• People Connector – inclusive mindset and team player
• People leadership experience ideal