Category Strategy Manager

Welcome to Haleon. We’re a purpose-driven, world-class consumer company putting everyday health in the hands of millions. In just three years since our launch, we’ve grown, evolved and are now entering an exciting new chapter – one filled with bold ambitions and enormous opportunity.

Our trusted portfolio of brands – including Sensodyne®, Panadol®, Advil®, Voltaren®, Theraflu®, Otrivin®, and Centrum® – lead in resilient and growing categories. What sets us apart is our unique blend of deep human understanding and trusted science.

Now it’s time to fully realise the full potential of our business and our people. We do this through our Win as One strategy. It puts our purpose – to deliver better everyday health with humanity – at the heart of everything we do. It unites us, inspires us, and challenges us to be better every day, driven by our agile, performance-focused culture.

About The Role

We are currently recruiting for Category Strategy Manager to join our Category Management team to deliver on strategy and insights. In this role you will be the category growth champion inside Haleon – creating future thinking strategies, frameworks and recommendations that influence everything from brand planning to customer execution, ensuring we put the consumer at the heart of everything we do. You will create inspiring category visions, drivers and tactics to gain advantage for our brands and drive sustainable, profitable growth.

The Category Strategy manager is expected to show strong internal leadership, advanced strategic thinking & implementation and provide support to the team and Category Development Lead.
 

Key Responsibilities
 

Multi-Functional Working

• Ability to build and maintain lasting relationships, Influence internal stakeholders and work in a collaborative manner.
• Ensure clear understanding of consumer and category dynamics, inspiring and giving confidence to our key internal stakeholders.
• Gain agreement from others to support ideas or take action using fact-based recommendations. Establish and work to continually improve productive long-term relationships.
• Challenge conventional thinking & ways of working, leading the wider cross-functional team to proactively look for new, exciting ways to drive category growth.
• Ensure that category is at the heart of Internal Commercial Planning Process by working within a cross functional team to create actionable category, customer & shopper insight driven plans.
• Work with our above market and regional business units to leverage and share market learnings

Accountability & Courage

• Be accountable. Set clear & achievable targets.
• Propose ideas to drive category performance grounded in insight
• Identify the big wins for Haleon, the customer & the category, short, medium & long term and prioritise team work plan accordingly
• Question when things could be done better, take appropriate risks and learn from mistakes.
• Be the voice of the category and customer internally, ensure customer insight is at the heart of all Haleon decision making
• Define the “so what” from the data, taking insights forward to create a compelling customer story and tangible action using an array of sources.
• Proactively monitor, evaluate and analyse category performance against our competitive set and categories. Identify opportunities and risks to proactively take to key stakeholders.

Develop, Influence & Execute Forward thinking Category Strategies

• Develop and embed future-focused category strategies that anticipate consumer, shopper, and customer trends across the healthcare landscape.
• Leverage data-driven insights to identify growth opportunities and shape category vision aligned with Haleon’s strategic priorities.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to translate strategic thinking into actionable plans that drive category leadership and commercial success.
• Champion innovation and agility in category planning to stay ahead of market dynamics and evolving shopper behaviours.
• Influence customer engagement strategies by aligning category growth plans with retailer priorities and joint business planning.
• Work with external facing category managers to co-develop an inspiring Category Visions, Drivers and Tactics, challenge conventional thinking, and think outside the norm.
• Work with global team to Identify and quantify the drivers of category performance that support each customer’s growth strategies.
• Work closely with Marketing to Identify required shopper behaviour changes and to implement the tactics that sit behind individual growth drivers.
• Set up and implement category testing and trial initiatives including customer interface, analysis and monitoring with using Haleon resources such as the shopper science lab

Business Planning

• Work in conjunction with NRM to populate Tool kits i.e. Range Price, Pack Architecture, ROS, SKU ladder hierarchy and jointly develop promotional strategy recommendations
• Develop and implement forward thinking channel and range strategies.
• Become the voice of the shopper & customer internally at Haleon during the business planning process e.g. SKU rationalization

Qualifications and skills

Required

• FMCG or Consumer Health Experience in Category Management, Insights or Commercial Strategy.
• Experienced in category management, shopper or trade marketing, or other commercial excellence areas
• A confident communicator with strong presentation skills with the ability to influence through storytelling at all levels.
• A strategic thinker who can simplify complexity into compelling recommendations.
   

Preferred

• Proven ability to use data and insights to provide recommendations
• Experience of using data platforms to deliver insights and recommendations internally and externally (such as Nielsen, Kantar, Dunhumby, Nectar, Amazon VC /ABVP)

 

 

 

 Job Posting End Date

 

 

2026-01-10

 

 

 

Equal Opportunities

Haleon are committed to mobilising our purpose in a way that represents the diverse consumers and communities who rely on our brands every day. It guides us in creating an inclusive culture, where different backgrounds and views are valued and respected – all in support of understanding and best serving the needs of our consumers and unleashing the full potential of our people. It’s important to us that Haleon is a place where all our employees feel they truly belong.

During the application process, we may ask you to share some personal information, which is entirely voluntary. This information ensures we meet certain regulatory and reporting obligations and supports the development, refinement, and execution of our inclusion and belonging programmes that are open to all Haleon employees. 

The personal information you provide will be kept confidential, used only for legitimate business purposes, and will never be used in making any employment decisions, including hiring decisions.

 

 

 

Adjustment or Accommodations Request

If you require a reasonable adjustment or accommodation or other assistance to apply for a job at Haleon at any stage of the application process, please let your recruiter know by providing them with a description of specific adjustments you are requesting. We’ll provide all reasonable adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process and treat all information you provide us in confidence. 

 

 

 

Note to candidates

The Haleon recruitment team will contact you using a Haleon email account (@haleon.com). If you are not sure whether the email you received is from Haleon, please get in touch.