Category Manager & Trade Marketing Lead Manager

Position Title: Category Manager & Trade Marketing Lead Manager
Position Type: Regular - Full-Time
Position Location: Eschborn
Grade: Grade 05
Requisition ID: 37234
In every role, McCainers are ambitious, curious, and passionate about creating exceptional work experiences - together. With a customer-first mindset, we make doing business with McCain easy.
Job Purpose:
As Category Manager & Trade Marketing Lead Manager (CM & TM Lead Manager) for McCain Germany, you will lead all Category Management and Trade Marketing activities in the retail sector. You will serve as the key link between Marketing and Sales, driving category growth, increasing brand visibility at the point of sale, and executing impactful trade and shopper activation initiatives. Your leadership will help grow turnover, market share, and profitability for our Frozen Potatoes & Appetizers category.
To achieve these goals, you will identify and assess key growth levers, set clear objectives, and implement strategies and action plans across assortment, promotion, merchandising, and other commercial drivers.
You will also work closely with Marketing, Key Account Management (KAM), and the Sales Force to ensure effective trade communication and shopper activation. For CM you will own and drive our local Category Vision including all cascading initiatives as well as driving our key CM projects with customers. For TM the role will include developing impactful POS materials, executing trade promotions, leveraging retail media, managing consumer POS promotions, and supporting B2B communications.
Your ability to coordinate these efforts will be crucial to maximizing category performance and strengthening McCain's position in the German retail market.
Where you'll work: Eschborn, Germany
Report to: Sales Director Retail DACH & Central Europe.
Team Leadership: Managing a team of 3-4 professionals across Category Management and Trade Marketing
Key responsibilities:
Development of Category Vision & build CM expertise

• Cascade the overall company global and EMENA vision down to the Geman market in leveraging overall and market specific research to define a compelling category vison for both segments, frozen potato and appetizers
• Develop customer specific Cat Strategies in collaboration with the customers
• Build the internal CM knowledge at KAM, Sales Force teams as well as be the main sparring partner for EMENA CM
• Lead customer CM projects and act as neutral counterpart side by side with KAMs in customer interactions
• Conduct shopper and planogram studies to improve the categories visibility

TM - shopper activation and trade support

• Develop compelling, effective and goal serving trade promos, shopper activation initiatives (couponings, overall national POS promos, individual customer promos/regional promos, POS material and consumer incentives, retail media, and much more)
• Develop compelling selling stories for innovations and our commercial plans (yearly discussion decks) to trade in collaboration with Marketing and KAM

Market knowledge

• Shopper expert, identifying consumer trends in all channels (hyper- and supermarkets, proxi stores, E-commerce)
• Analysis of the category performance including competition based on sell-out date and consumer panels
• Strong knowledge of customer priorities/strategies

Value Creation

• Foster strong relationship and collaboration ship with key accounts (customers)
• Optimize the category profitability by working on the Product/Customer/Channels Mix
• Implementation and management of McCain's Promotional Strategy
• Roll-out the category strategy (Demand Spaces) into applicable planogram for customers.
• Supporting the whole process of launching new products from target setting, analyzing customer potential and follow-up plans.
• Works in close relationship with Key Account Managers, Marketing & Field team

Reporting activities

• Establish a state of the art category analysis structure with trade and consumer panel base
• Monitors the performance of national customers through regular assessment of activities and reports, management the relative information and the required action plans.

Team Management

• Role within the inner leading circle with Marketing lead, KAM Lead, Sales Force Lead , Sales Coordination
• Provide clear direction, mentorship, and ongoing professional development for the CM/TM team
• Support the professional development of team members by offering mentorship, coaching, and training opportunities.
• Monitor the performance of individual team members against targets and KPIs, providing regular feedback and performance reviews.
• Implement strategies to motivate the team to achieve sales targets and drive revenue growth.
• Foster a high-performing, motivated, and collaborative team environment

Key Qualifications and Experience:

• University degree in Economics, Business Administration, Marketing, or related field.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in Category Management and Trade Marketing, ideally within the FMCG sector and a multinational brand environment.
• At least 3 years of Category Management experience and GS1 CM certification (required).
• Proven experience in trade marketing or marketing roles.
• Strong analytical skills; adept at interpreting data and insights to inform business decisions.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, ideally Power BI, and retail analytics tools (e.g., Circana, YouGov).
• Fluent in English (written and spoken); native or business-fluent German required.
• Deep understanding of food industry trends, regulations, and consumer preferences is highly desirable.
• Minimum 3 years of leadership experience.
• Empathetic, performance-driven, and people-oriented leadership style.
• Agile, innovative, resilient, and aligned with McCain Leadership principles.
• Excellent negotiation and communication skills, with a proven ability to build successful partnerships.
• Strong strategic thinking and customer-centric mindset.
• Effective communication and presentation abilities.

What's in it for You?

• Opportunity to join a global, iconic brand and a high-performing, supportive team.

• A varied and responsible job in an effective and international team with flat hierarchies.

• Opportunity to join a global, iconic brand and a high-performing, supportive team.
• Employment contract and stable employment (permanent role)

• Local benefit (Health and Pension insurance).

• Support of the supervisor and team in professional adaptation
• Great opportunities for professional growth and development
• Partial working from home is possible
• Friendly atmosphere

Join McCain Family! Apply now.
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McCain Foods is an equal opportunity employer. As a global family-owned company, we strive to be the employer of choice in the diverse communities around the world in which we live and work. We recognize that inclusion drives our creativity, resilience, and success and makes our business stronger. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.
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Job Family: Sales
Division: Continental Europe
Department: Category Management
Location(s) : DE - Germany : Hesse : Eschborn
Company: McCain GMBH