Director, Category Leadership, Walmart

Job Description Summary:

Director, Category Leadership

Role is located in Rogers, Arkansas and will report to the Senior Director, Category Leadership, Walmart & Sam’s Club.

The Coca-Cola Category Leadership team is seeking a highly skilled, strategic category advisor to support the Walmart business. This role is responsible for building trusted merchant relationships, translating complex data into clear recommendations, and leading category strategies that strengthen assortment, space, modular execution, and shopper-focused decision-making. As a Director, Category Leadership, you will combine technical capability, customer partnership, people leadership, and objective category expertise to help Walmart merchants identify growth opportunities and make informed decisions across the beverage category.

Key Responsibilities:

Technical Analysis and Reporting: Utilize Power BI, Alteryx, AI-enabled capabilities, Excel, and other analytics tools to analyze complex data sets, build dashboards, automate recurring reporting, and deliver clear visuals for customer-facing stakeholders.

Data Management and Category Tools: Collect, clean, combine, and maintain data to ensure accuracy and reliability across reporting and analysis. Leverage Walmart Scintilla, Nielsen, Numerator, shopper/panel data, internal data sources, and other relevant tools to identify category opportunities and support merchant recommendations.

Customer Engagement and Advisor Partnership: Serve as a trusted category advisor and primary point of contact for Walmart merchants, understanding both tactical and strategic needs to deliver tailored recommendations, support strategic planning conversations, and influence decisions through objective, fact-based category expertise.

Insights, Strategy, and Storytelling: Develop fact-based insights that connect category trends, shopper behavior, consumer dynamics, competitive activity, innovation, and performance results into cohesive assortment and space recommendations. Translate complex analysis into clear, compelling stories that drive action with merchants and senior stakeholders.

Cross-Functional and Omnichannel Collaboration: Partner closely with internal teams across space, shopper insights, advanced analytics, and omnichannel to align category strategies, support Walmart merchant priorities, and ensure recommendations are connected across store and digital shopping experiences.

Continuous Improvement and Capability Building: Stay current on industry trends, Walmart tools, category management best practices, automation, AI-enabled analytics, and data visualization approaches to improve processes, reporting, datasets, and decision support capabilities.

Assortment, Space, and Modular Execution: Lead assortment and modular reset recommendations, including SKU optimization, space-to-sales analysis, regionality, aisle flow, adjacency strategy, white-space discovery, planograms, and post-reset performance tracking.

Advisor Integrity and Confidentiality: Maintain objectivity, confidentiality, and high ethical standards when handling customer, competitive, supplier, and category-sensitive information. Ensure recommendations are unbiased, category-first, and aligned with Walmart’s expectations for trusted category advisorship.

Qualifications:

Minimum Required: 

• 5+ years of experience in CPG, retail, category management, shopper insights, business analytics, or related field
• Experience developing customer-facing category recommendations for a major retailer, with Walmart experience strongly preferred
• Strong knowledge of category management principles, space management, assortment strategy, shopper behavior, and analytic techniques
• Experience translating data into customer-facing recommendations, presentations, and category stories
   

Preferred Level:

• 7+ years of experience in CPG, retail, category management, shopper insights, business analytics, or related field
• Experience serving in or directly supporting a Walmart category advisor role
• Experience using Walmart Scintilla or similar customer data platforms to develop category recommendations
• Experience across multiple disciplines beyond category management, such as shopper insights, space planning, advanced analytics, customer strategy, or omnichannel

Education:  Minimum Required: Bachelor’s Degree; Preferred:  MBA or other graduate degree

SKILLS:

• Analytics & Automation: Proficiency in Power BI, Alteryx, Excel, and AI-enabled analytics is essential. Experience with SQL or scalable data automation is a plus.
• Walmart and Category Data Platforms: Strong familiarity with Walmart Scintilla, Nielsen, Circana, Numerator, shopper/panel data, data hierarchies, and the nuances of using multiple data sources to develop category recommendations.
• Analytical Skills: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to interpret complex data, identify patterns, and translate insights into practical actions.
• Storytelling and Influence: Excellent verbal, written, and visual communication skills with the ability to simplify complex analysis, build compelling presentations, and influence stakeholders at multiple levels.
• Customer Focus: Demonstrated ability to build and maintain strong merchant relationships by understanding customer needs, anticipating questions, and delivering objective category recommendations.
• Detail-Oriented Execution: High attention to detail at both breadth and depth, with the ability to manage multiple priorities, timelines, data sets, and stakeholder expectations.
• Category and Space Management: Experience with JDA/Blue Yonder, Cantactix/Mission Control, planogram development, assortment analysis, modular resets, space-to-sales, regionality, aisle flow, and post-reset measurement is a plus.

Successful candidates will possess:

• Integrity, objectivity, and commitment to confidentiality
• Insatiable curiosity and comfort navigating ambiguity
• Strong merchant partnership and customer-first orientation
• Tenacious drive for process improvement, automation, and capability building
• Willingness to respectfully challenge conventional thinking with fact-based recommendations
• Proactive engagement across internal teams, customer stakeholders, and cross-functional partners

Travel: 20%

Location: Rogers, Arkansas

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:

Pay Range:

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:

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.

Location(s):

City/Cities:

Travel Required:

Relocation Provided:

Job Posting End Date:

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.