[Hiring] Sr. Commercial Strategy & Category Insights Manager @Idahoan Foods

Role Description

The Senior Commercial Strategy & Category Insights Manager is a strategic leader responsible for driving growth through comprehensive category, consumer, shopper, and market analysis. This role serves as the organization’s go-to expert in category management and insights, translating complex data into clear strategic direction on where to play and how to win.

This leader partners closely with Sales, Marketing, and cross-functional teams to shape commercial strategy, inform innovation, and develop compelling, insight-led selling stories that enable success with retail partners. The role combines deep analytical rigor with strong storytelling and influence, ensuring insights are consistently converted into decisive actions and measurable business impact.

Main Responsibilities

• Category & Demand Landscape Analysis:
  • Lead in-depth analysis of market trends, shopper behavior, and competitive dynamics across categories.
  • Synthesize consumer, shopper, category, and competitive insights to identify growth opportunities and unmet needs.
  • Quantify and prioritize opportunities based on strategic and financial impact.
  • Maintain a forward-looking view of category risks and opportunities.
• Insights Generation & Strategic Translation:
  • Utilize advanced analytics to generate actionable insights that inform business decisions.
  • Translate data into clear strategic recommendations, including “where to play” and “how to win.”
  • Simplify complex data into compelling, actionable narratives for stakeholders.
  • Embed insights into key commercial decisions, ensuring they drive measurable outcomes.
• Commercial Impact & Selling Stories:
  • Develop compelling, insight-led selling stories for new and existing products across retail channels.
  • Connect consumer and category insights to retailer growth opportunities.
  • Partner with Sales to tailor stories by customer and channel.
  • Support customer meetings and drive opportunities for category captaincy with top accounts.
• Strategic Planning & Growth Agenda:
  • Contribute to annual and long-range strategic planning processes.
  • Identify and shape growth opportunities across key demand spaces, segments, and occasions.
  • Inform brand, pricing, promotion, and pack architecture strategies.
  • Lead Idahoan’s space and shelving strategies to maximize category and brand performance.
• Innovation & Activation Guidance:
  • Identify high-potential demand spaces to inform innovation pipelines.
  • Provide insight-driven recommendations on product concepts, messaging, and positioning.
  • Ensure innovation aligns with consumer needs, shopper behavior, and category opportunities.
• Shopper & Consumer Insights Leadership:
  • Serve as the internal expert on consumer, shopper, and category behavior.
  • Translate insights into actionable retail and marketing strategies.
  • Develop frameworks around jobs-to-be-done, occasions, and segmentation.
  • Inform promotional strategies and key seasonal/event-based opportunities.
• Market Intelligence & Organizational Influence:
  • Educate and inform the commercial organization on category and brand performance.
  • Act as a strategic thought partner across Sales, Marketing, and Category teams.
  • Influence stakeholders to act on insights with clarity and conviction.
  • Champion best practices in analytics, storytelling, and insight activation.
• Education & Capability Building:
  • Train and educate cross-functional teams on category insights, tools, and best practices.
  • Elevate organizational capability in data literacy, storytelling, and decision-making.
  • Drive adoption and usability of category management deliverables.

Key Performance Indicators

• Impact of insights on marketing, sales, and innovation decisions
• Effectiveness of selling stories and category management deliverables
• Adoption and performance of space and shelving strategies
• Contribution to new item success, distribution gains, and category growth
• Stakeholder satisfaction and engagement with insights
• Measurable business impact from insight-driven initiatives

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required (Business, Marketing, Analytics, or related field); MBA preferred
• 5–8+ years of experience in Category Management, Commercial Strategy, or Insights within CPG
• Strong experience with syndicated data (Circana, Nielsen/IRI) and retailer POS data
• Experience with shopper data platforms (e.g., 84.51°, Dunnhumby, EYC, Stratum)
• Advanced Excel and PowerPoint skills; strong data visualization capabilities
• Experience with space management tools preferred
• Ability to leverage AI tools (e.g., Copilot, Claude) to enhance insights and productivity

Core Competencies

• Strategic thinking and growth mindset
• Advanced analytics and insight generation
• Storytelling and communication excellence
• Commercial acumen and customer orientation
• Cross-functional collaboration and influence
• Innovation and problem-solving orientation
• Ability to simplify complexity into action
• Strong execution, prioritization, and urgency

Benefits

• Bonus Potential
• Medical, Dental, Vision Insurance for full-time team members
• PTO (Vacation, Sick, and Holidays) for full-time team members
• 401K match
• Company paid disability and life insurance policies
• Paid maternity and parental leave

Approach to Flexible Work

The majority of our roles are primarily located in one of our manufacturing facilities or in our corporate office in Idaho Falls, Idaho, offering us the ability to effectively collaborate, innovate, and develop the next leaders of Idahoan Foods. While we want to capitalize on purposeful in-person days, we also value flexibility and appreciate that it can mean something different to everyone based on your unique circumstances. That’s why at Idahoan we focus on meaningful conversations between you and your manager to identify what works best for the business, team, your role, and your personal needs. Within our manufacturing workforce, we follow our process for time off requests and working within our attendance policy. Those same elements apply outside of manufacturing, but your position may offer some additional flexibility to work remotely at times.

Equal Opportunity

We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information (including family medical history), political affiliation, military service, or other non-merit-based factors.