Associate Category Manager, Category Growth

Strategic Category Growth Initiatives

Responsible for the development and execution of strategic category growth initiatives that meet the goals and strategies for Baskin-Robbins U.S.

Responsibilities:

Responsible for product innovation across categories:

• Use multi-lens insights to generate and prioritize new menu items.
• Work with Culinary Innovation and Category Management to build innovation pipeline with viable products and platform ideas to support category initiatives to deliver brand growth.
• Author Culinary Briefs, Concepts for Screeners or Research and leads collaboration for the development of new products and platforms for all BR categories.
• Team lead or key point of contact for product testing, work with internal and external teams (Culinary, Category Management, Insights, Supply Chain, Commercialization, Operations, Finance, Vendors) to vet and test products and platforms, including refinements.
• Develop and sell in business cases with program summaries and plans to internal and external teams.
• Collaborates with Category Management in any new product or platform launches through seamless handoffs and sharing of insights.

Support existing platform priorities, including manufactured cakes:

• Work with cross functional teams and external partners to bring manufactured desserts to market including the build, design, packaging, merchandising and sell in of new desserts.

Lead whitespace innovation:

• Work with Director to identify whitespace to unlock brand growth.
• Monitor trends and insights to develop recommendations on prioritized area of focus
• Lead innovation calendar cadences (innovation brainstorms, trend tours, etc) to foster collaboration and provide key innovation learnings to cross functional teams.

Requirements:

• 4 year degree in Marketing, Business, Culinary Arts or related field
• 2+ Years working in Marketing, Brand Strategy, Category Management, Culinary Innovation or related expertise
• Business acumen, including understanding of market trends, consumers, competitors and P&L fluency.
• Experience taking product ideas from ideation to execution.
• Ability to think strategically and creatively.
• Ability to collect and synthesize information, making it relevant, understandable, and actionable for key stakeholders.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, especially the ability to explain difficult concepts in applicable business terms. Strong ability to summarize strategies into (PowerPoint) presentations in clear and understandable message.
• Project Management and strong ability to work with cross-functional teams.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment, multi-task, prioritize and be detail oriented.
• Self-starter personality who can operate with some supervision.
• Ideal candidate has an inquisitive nature, a passion for learning and solving problems and a growth mindset.
• Exposure to food allergens.
• Must have a passion for ice cream.

Salary: $79,953.75 - $106,605.00 per year. The salary range above represents the low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual placement within this range will vary based on various factors including but not limited to experience, education, training, and location.

Inspire is a multi-brand restaurant company whose portfolio includes more than 33,000 Arby's, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin', Jimmy John's, and SONIC restaurants worldwide. We're made up of some of the world's most iconic restaurant brands, but we're much more than just a restaurant company. We're a team of hundreds of thousands who individually and collectively are changing the way people eat, drink, and gather around the table. We know that food is much more than a stapleit's an experience. At Inspire, that's our purpose: to ignite and nourish flavorful experiences.