Senior Manager, Skin Care Category Strategy & Planning

ABOUT UNILEVER

With 3.4 billion people in over 190 countries using our products every day, Unilever is a business that makes a real impact on the world. Work on brands that are loved and improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us. We are driven by our purpose: to make sustainable living commonplace, and it is our belief that doing business the right way drives superior performance. At the heart of what we do is our people – we believe that when our people work with purpose, we will create a better business and a better world. 

The Category Strategy & Planning (CS&P) organization leads category strategy and channel and customer planning for the U.S. Skin Care business within the Beauty & Wellbeing Business Unit.

This role is a leadership position with responsibility for overseeing Category Strategy & Planning across the Vaseline, Dove and Shea Moisture Skin Care.

The Category Planning function partners closely with Field Sales, Marketing (local and global), Shopper Marketing, Finance, Net Revenue Management, Supply Chain, and Trade Marketing to bring commercial strategies to life at retail—including eCommerce—through flawless execution that delivers U.S. Skin Care top‑ and bottom‑line growth targets.

The Senior Manager, Category Strategy & Planning – Skin Care will serve as the voice of the customer and shopper, ensuring channel and customer insights are embedded into short‑ and long‑term brand and customer commercial plans that align with retailer strategies and deliver profitable growth for both Unilever and its customers.

JOB PURPOSE
Find your purpose at Unilever. You will lead innovations, big and small, that will make our business win and grow. You will learn from brilliant business leaders and colleagues in a truly global and diverse culture to ultimately become a better you. If you are driven by commercial acumen, like winning and are passionate about growing categories with customers then this role is just for you.

WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES BE

• Lead profitable growth for the U.S. Skin Care category, bringing an entrepreneurial, challenger mindset to reignite competitive performance and accelerate category momentum.
• Translate data into insight and insight into action by developing and executing robust commercial plans aligned to the Category Growth Strategy and key Category Value Drivers.
• Own the development of annual growth targets, trade investment budgets, and forecasts that ladder directly to the Hair Care P&L and deliver both top‑ and bottom‑line KPIs.
• Set and deploy channel strategy for the category, ensuring holistic, disciplined customer investment across channels and customers to drive sustainable, profitable growth.
• Lead deep‑dive commercial analytics, including pricing architecture, distribution gaps, competitive dynamics, trade optimization, promotional effectiveness, and shopper insights to inform strategic and tactical decision‑making.
• Serve as the voice of the customer, channel, and shopper within IBP and JBP processes, while also representing category and brand priorities externally with customers and internally with sales and field teams.
• Own category assortment and promotional strategy, leveraging data‑driven analysis to continuously optimize promotional plans, improve ROI, and enhance in‑market execution.
• Partner closely with field sales and cross‑functional teams to ensure best‑in‑class in‑store activation, flawless execution of national cross‑category and cross‑customer tentpole programs, and successful innovation launch planning and execution.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO SUCCEED
Experiences & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required, MBA preferred
• At least +5 years’ experience in Customer Development, Account Management, Trade Marketing, Category Strategy, and/or Brand Marketing Operations within Consumer Goods industry
• Results driven and ownership mindset to achieve set goals and KPIs
• Proven ability to demonstrate analytical thinking, data-driven decision making, and ability to influence through strategy story-telling through data and insights
• Retail, eCommerce, and Omnichannel experience preferred
• Ability to think strategically, and produce results in a highly entrepreneurial environment
• Excellent oral/written and presentation skills; ability to tailor your communication style across a multitude of disciplines leadership levels
• Energized by collaborating with cross-functional partners on new and creative ways to solve business problems
• Encourages ownership to resolve issues where they are happening. Holds others and organization accountable for delivery.
• High comfort level using IRI/Nielsen (POS data), Numerator (panel data)
• Very Good level of business acumen
• Strategic and analytic thinking incl. solution orientated mindset
• Senior Stakeholder Management & Strategic influencing
• Excellent Team & leadership skills

Skills

• Category Growth Management
• Channels
• Data Literacy
• Executional Excellence
• Commercial Strategy
• Digital Commerce
• Leadership

• This is a team leadership role requiring to bring dynamic attitude and passion the growing the category and talent in the organization. You will need to demonstrate excellent leadership skill with particular focus on
• Talent Catalyst that builds an exclusive cross-functional team that embraces end to end collaboration while stretching each other to reach ambition goals
• Passion for High Performance to over-deliver against assigned targets while managing market volatility by having an agile mindset to find creative solutions to achieve results
• BUSINESS ACUMEN: Creates sustainable growth with purpose, engaging different partners across the system for change.

Pay: The pay range for this position is $119,400 to $179,000. Unilever takes into consideration a wide range of factors that are utilized in making compensation decisions including, but not limited to, skill sets, experience and training, licensure and certifications, qualifications and education, and other business and organizational needs.
Bonus: This position is bonus eligible.
Long-Term Incentive (LTI): This position is LTI eligible.
Benefits: Unilever employees are eligible to participate in our benefits plan. Should the employee choose to participate, they can choose from a range of benefits to include, but is not limited to, health insurance (including prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage), retirement savings benefits, life insurance and disability benefits, parental leave, sick leave, paid vacation and holidays, as well as access to numerous voluntary benefits. Any coverages for health insurance and retirement benefits will be in accordance with the terms and conditions of the applicable plans and associated governing plan documents.

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At Unilever, inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. We welcome applicants from all walks of life and are committed to creating an environment where everyone can thrive/succeed. All applicants will receive fair and respectful consideration, and we actively support the growth and development of every employee.

Unilever is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Persons with Disabilities.

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