The Head of Category is a pivotal, high-impact leader responsible for the end-to-end success of the assigned category. This role drives a market-leading strategy and execution roadmap to maximize innovation, growth, and profitability across global and local markets.
Leading with a full business perspective, you will own the category's financial performance, ensuring the portfolio is competitive, customer-centric, and aligned with corporate growth objectives. This requires both deep strategic vision, a profound technical understanding in the segment and expert-level project management to ensure operational excellence and commercial success throughout the entire product lifecycle.
Success in this role requires a unique blend of strong business acumen, deep financial ownership, in-depth technical understanding and proven cross-functional leadership to deliver measurable results that significantly contribute to the Division's growth targets.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Vision & Category Ownership
· Develop and Own the Category Strategy: Create and maintain the overall category strategy, roadmap, and long-term vision, ensuring alignment with corporate growth targets and future market trends.
· Business Case and Financial Modeling: Define and own the business case for all major initiatives, including financial modeling, ROI assessment, and resource justification to secure critical investment.
· Drive Commercial Success: Achieve sales and margin targets in collaboration with commercial leaders. Define and execute proactive commercial action plans to achieve or outperform defined growth plans.
· Portfolio Management: Maintain a lean, competitive, and customer-relevant portfolio, overseeing the execution of the product lifecycle process, from rigorous development to timely launch.
· Stakeholder Advocacy: Lead advocacy and secure buy-in for the category strategy among key stakeholders, senior leaders, and executive sponsors.
Execution & Cross-Functional Program Management
· Lead Complex Programs: Translate high-level business strategy into detailed, actionable project plans, roadmaps, and work packages across R&D, commercial, technology, and manufacturing functions.
· Manage Cross-Functional Teams: Lead, motivate, and coordinate large, geographically dispersed cross-functional teams (including Product Management, Sales, R&D, Finance, and Operations).
· Risk Mitigation: Proactively identify and manage critical risks, dependencies, and potential bottlenecks, implementing timely and effective mitigation strategies to ensure on-time, on-budget, and on-scope delivery.
· Executive Communication: Prepare and deliver high-quality, executive-level reports and presentations to senior leadership, facilitating critical decision-making and conflict resolution.
Market & Performance Intelligence
· Market Analysis: Conduct continuous, in-depth market analysis, competitive benchmarking, and Voice of Customer (VOC) exercises to inform and validate the strategic direction.
· Performance Tracking: Monitor global product sales, margins, and market share. Identify trends, gaps, and required actions to drive performance and profitability.
· Pricing Strategy: Define and manage global pricing strategies, utilizing a Good-Better-Best approach to maximize market penetration and margin.
· Go-To-Market Excellence: Deliver successful global launches by ensuring complete cross-functional business readiness (Sales enablement, Manufacturing, Engineering, etc.).
Qualifications
Education
· Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business Administration, or a related technical field is required.
· A Master's degree or MBA is a distinct advantage.
Experience
· Minimum 7 years of progressive experience managing large-scale, complex, strategic business transformation or growth projects within international, multi-site environments.
· Proven track record of successfully leading complex, cross-functional strategic initiatives that delivered measurable commercial results (e.g., revenue growth, market share gain, or significant cost reduction).
· Extensive experience in a technical field, product segment or product family
· Demonstrated experience in business case development, financial modeling, and managing significant project budgets.
· Experience in the Heating & Cooling industry is a significant advantage.
Skills & Competencies
· Strategic Mindset: Ability to think critically about the business, connect financial performance to strategic choices, and influence senior leaders.
· Drives Results: Consistently achieves ambitious results, maintains focus under pressure, and manages complexity effectively.
· Core Technical Knowledge: A strong foundational understanding of the relevant technologies, tools and frameworks within the HIU (Heat Interface Units) area. Ability to apply theoretical concepts to practical applications and confidence in leading technical discussions
· Plans and Aligns: Expertly plans, prioritizes, and aligns large-scale work packages to meet organizational goals.
· Collaborates and Communicates: Builds strong cross-functional partnerships, instills trust, and develops multi-mode communications that resonate clearly with diverse audiences, including the executive level.
· Business Insight & Customer Focus: Applies deep knowledge of the market and customer needs to advance organizational goals and build customer-centric solutions.
Join us to be part of a forward-thinking, people-centered company where your ideas and contributions truly matter.