Job Description Summary:
At The Coca‑Cola Company, growth starts with understanding the evolving customer and shopper landscape. Our ability to deliver value for retail partners in a dynamic marketplace depends on insights-driven strategies and the strength of our Category Leadership capabilities.
As Senior Director, Category Leadership – Central Large Store Retail, you will lead a highly strategic portfolio of national and regional customers and oversee a team accountable for translating marketplace data and consumer trends into actionable growth strategies. This leadership role goes beyond execution—it combines strategic thinking, commercial agility, and organizational influence to shape customer partnerships that accelerate category performance and long-term profitability. You will partner closely across Sales, Bottlers, Customer Shopper Insights, Space Strategy, Commercial Strategy, and other enterprise teams to deliver solutions that unite customer priorities with Coca‑Cola’s growth objectives.
Travel expectation is approximately 30%
What You’ll Do for Us
- Lead and inspire a geographically dispersed Category Leadership organization, driving a culture of collaboration, curiosity, and customer focus.
- Recruit, develop, and elevate top talent while building capability in analytics, commercial strategy, and customer engagement.
- Provide leadership for direct reports, including leader-of-leaders responsibilities, ensuring accountability, succession planning, and ongoing development frameworks.
- Serve as the senior Category Leadership partner for a portfolio of Central Large Store retailers, shaping category growth strategies and delivering annual and multi-year planning recommendations.
- Build trusted relationships with senior retail decision makers and act as a thought partner to Sales leadership on both immediate and long-range planning.
- Translate customer, shopper, and marketplace insights into actionable frameworks, category blueprints, and growth recommendations tailored by priority account.
- Coordinate with Sales, Bottling partners, and Commercial teams to execute customer growth strategies integrated across enterprise capabilities.
- Balance near-term business imperatives with long-range category vision, aligning resources to unlock the highest-value opportunities for Coca‑Cola and its retail partners.
- Collaborate with insights, space, digital commerce, revenue growth, and segmentation teams to deliver connected solutions grounded in shopper needs and performance analytics.
- Scale best practices and standardized methodologies for Category Leadership excellence across multiple accounts and the broader organization.
- Represent the customer voice to influence enterprise innovation, commercial planning, and growth strategies that reflect evolving retail dynamics.
Requirements & Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Economics, Finance, or related field required; MBA preferred.
- 10+ years of progressive experience across Category Leadership, Category Management, Customer Sales, or Commercial Strategy roles within CPG or retail environments.
- Proven ability to lead diverse teams and build organizational capability through strong talent management practices and inclusive leadership behaviors.
- Exceptional strategic agility with experience linking long-range commercial priorities to actionable category programs.
- Expertise in interpreting complex analytics and distilling insights into recommendations that influence senior stakeholders and customer decision makers.
- Advanced proficiency with relevant platforms and tools, including space planning software, assortment solutions, MS Office, Power BI, and syndicated data sources (NielsenIQ, Circana).
- Experience managing relationships with customer-specific data platforms such as 84.51, dunnhumby, or similar resources.
- Skilled in customer engagement and negotiation with a proven record of delivering successful commercial outcomes through collaborative strategies.
- Demonstrated capability to lead through change, creating clarity and alignment around a shared vision while maintaining pace toward measurable goals.
- Strong planning skills and prioritization discipline to manage overlapping deliverables across both near-term execution and long-range strategic frameworks.
- Provide an opportunity to shape Coca‑Cola’s category growth strategy across some of the most strategically important customer relationships in North America.
- Enable leadership impact at both enterprise and customer levels, advancing methodologies and frameworks that strengthen commercial decision-making.
- Support professional growth through access to enterprise tools, insights, and peer collaboration that expand future-ready capabilities in analytics and shopper strategy.
- Deliver a platform to influence transformation projects that unify digital engagement, data-driven insights, and strategic planning for customer success.
The Coca-Cola Company will not offer sponsorship for employment status (including, but not limited to, H1-B visa status and other employment-based nonimmigrant visas) for this position. Accordingly, all applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis and must not require The Coca-Cola Company's sponsorship to continue to work legally in the United States.
Skills:
Analytics, Assortment Planning, Building Partnerships, Business Objectives, Commercial Planning, Customer Engagement, Data Interpretations, Digital Commerce, Executive Communications, Omnichannel, People Leadership, Prioritization, Space Planning, Strategic Storytelling, Strategy Development, Talent Development
Pay Range:
United States of America: 218,800 USD - 247,200 USD
Base pay offered may vary depending on geography, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. A full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the position, is offered.
Annual Incentive Reference Value Percentage:
50
Annual Incentive reference value is a market-based competitive value for your role. It falls in the middle of the range for your role, indicating performance at target.
Long-term Incentive Reference Value Percentage:
20
Long-term Incentive reference value is a market-based competitive value for your role.
Location(s):
United States of America
City/Cities:
Cincinnati
Travel Required:
00% - 25%
Relocation Provided:
No
Job Posting End Date:
August 12, 2026
Our Purpose and Growth Culture:
We are taking deliberate action to nurture an inclusive culture that is grounded in our company purpose, to refresh the world and make a difference. We act with a growth mindset, take an expansive approach to what’s possible and believe in continuous learning to improve our business and ourselves. We focus on four key behaviors – curious, empowered, inclusive and agile – and value how we work as much as what we achieve. We believe that our culture is one of the reasons our company continues to thrive after 130+ years. Visit Our Purpose and Vision to learn more about these behaviors and how you can bring them to life in your next role at Coca-Cola.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class. When we collect your personal information as part of a job application or offer of employment, we do so in accordance with industry standards and best practices and in compliance with applicable privacy laws.