Senior Manager, Category Management & Shopper Insights

Who We Are:

Kontoor Brands is a portfolio of three of the world’s most iconic lifestyle, outdoor and workwear brands: Wrangler®, Lee® and Helly Hansen®. Kontoor Brands is a purpose-led organization focused on leveraging its global platform, strategic sourcing model and best-in-class supply chain to drive brand growth and deliver long- term value for its stakeholders.

Job Posting:

Senior Manager, Category Management & Shopper Insights – Scintilla / Walmart

Job Summary

The Senior Manager, Category Management & Shopper Insights – Scintilla / Walmart is responsible for leading the category management, shopper insights, and retailer analytics agenda for Wrangler, with a primary focus on Walmart and Scintilla-enabled decision support. This role develops strategic alliances with internal teams and retail partners to deliver enhanced business results for Walmart and Wrangler.

This leader serves as a trusted category advisor and the voice of the Walmart shopper, translating Scintilla, retailer POS, inventory, assortment, competitive, syndicated, consumer, and shopper data into fact-based recommendations that influence category strategy, assortment, merchandising, pricing, promotions, omnichannel execution, and customer planning. The ideal candidate is highly skilled at storytelling with data, presents recommendations with clarity and analytical rigor, and continuously seeks out new data sources, tools, technologies, and methods to improve the quality and impact of insights.

Key Responsibilities

Category Strategy & Retail Marketplace Leadership

• Lead Wrangler and Walmart category management activities.
• Serve as an internal and external thought leader on Walmart shopper dynamics, retail trends, competitive activity, and evolving physical and digital shopping behaviors.
• Develop holistic omnichannel category strategies that connect shopper behavior, category performance, competitive dynamics, brand priorities, and retailer strategies.
• Identify whitespace opportunities, assortment gaps, competitive threats, and commercial growth levers using internal, industry, retailer-specific, and syndicated data sources.
• Define category growth platforms and strategic recommendations that support line reviews, Joint Business Planning, QBRs, annual planning, and customer strategy discussions.

Scintilla / Data Integration & Advanced Analytics

• Leverage Scintilla and related retailer data environments, combined with other data sources, such as Circana, or PlacerAI,  internal sales data, customer information, and other sources, to build holistic category and shopper insights.
• Analyze POS, inventory, sell-through, distribution, market share, pricing, promotions, assortment productivity, shopper behavior, demographics, market trends, and competitive performance for Wrangler.
• Translate large and complex data sets into clear findings, root-cause explanations, quantified opportunities, and action-oriented recommendations.
• Continuously seek, learn, and actively use new data sources, tools, technologies, and analytical methods to improve speed, rigor, and business impact.

Merchandising, Assortment, Shelf & Omnichannel Execution

• Partner with Sales, Category Management, Marketing, Product, Supply Chain, and Analytics teams to align Walmart category strategies with Wrangler business objectives and execution plans.
• Develop fact-based assortment, planogram, adjacency, space allocation, merchandising, and activation recommendations that grow both the category and Wrangler’s business.
• Support physical and digital shelf strategy by identifying opportunities to improve visibility, navigation, conversion, and productivity across Walmart channels.
• Evaluate promotional effectiveness, seasonal programs, in-market tests, display performance, and other initiatives to generate future recommendations.

Storytelling, Customer Engagement & Influence

• Influence decision-making through objective, fact-based recommendations while building credibility as a trusted advisor to both Walmart merchants and internal Wrangler leadership.
• Support Account Executives and customer teams in preparing for and delivering retailer-facing presentations, including line reviews, JBPs, QBRs, and strategic planning sessions.
• Build influential selling stories through PowerPoint, dashboards, scorecards, and executive-ready presentations for internal stakeholders, sales teams, and external retail customers.
• Design and deliver best-in-class monthly, quarterly, and annual Category, Channel, Customer Business Reviews, and performance scorecards.

Leadership, Process Improvement & Team Effectiveness

• Drive process improvements, reporting standards, and repeatable analytical approaches that elevate category management capability across the organization.
• Manage change effectively, prioritize work based on business value, and balance speed, accuracy, rigor, and stakeholder needs.
• Promote a culture of curiosity, accountability, analytical excellence, and shopper-centric decision making.

Responsibilities

• Category strategy, Wrangler Walmart partnership, line reviews, JBP/QBR/business planning, and retailer-facing thought leadership
• Scintilla, POS, syndicated, consumer, shopper, competitive, and omnichannel analytics
• Executive storytelling, dashboards, scorecards, customer presentations, and internal stakeholder influence

Requirements

• Strong candidates will be detail-oriented team players with exceptional analytical capability, category management expertise, shopper insight fluency, and the ability to proactively dig into data, develop a clear story, and influence decisions that drive results.
• 8–10+ years of related professional experience in category management, shopper insights, consumer insights, retail analytics, sales strategy, customer analytics, or commercial analytics.
• Walmart and Scintilla experience strongly preferred; hands-on experience with Walmart data environments such as Scintilla, Retail Link/Luminate, or equivalent retailer- specific platforms preferred.
• Power user with syndicated market data and shopper/consumer data sources such as Circana/NPD/IRI, Nielsen,
• Prior retail, CPG, apparel, mass merchant, or omnichannel category management experience preferred.
• Expertise in category management and retail business math, including sales, share, margin, velocity, distribution, inventory, sell-through, productivity, pricing, promotion, and assortment metrics.
• Strong quantitative analysis capabilities with ability to synthesize findings, identify root causes, quantify opportunities, and recommend practical actions.
• Excellent presentation skills, including executive-level PowerPoint storytelling and retailer-ready selling stories.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to translate complex analyses into simple, persuasive narratives.
• Strong interpersonal and influencing skills with ability to build trust across Sales, Marketing, Product, Supply Chain, Analytics, leadership, and customer teams.
• Ability to take initiative, drive results, manage change, improve processes, and lead work across multiple stakeholders and deadlines.
• Strong computer and analytics skills required, including Excel, PowerPoint, data management software, dashboards.
• Results-oriented with passion for achieving business outcomes and improving category performance.

Prior Work Experience

• Consumer, shopper insights, category management, retail analytics, sales strategy, or commercial analytics
• Walmart, mass merchant, retailer-facing category management, or customer analytics experience
• Scintilla, Retail Link/Luminate, or equivalent retailer-specific platforms
• Syndicated market data such as Circana/NPD/IRI, Nielsen, or similar tools
• Category strategy, assortment, shelving, merchandising, pricing, promotion, and omnichannel execution recommendations
• Executive-level presentation development, customer-facing storytelling, line reviews, QBRs, or Joint Business Planning
• Cross-functional leadership across Sales, Marketing, Product, Supply Chain, Analytics, and leadership teams
• Team leadership, analyst coaching, project leadership, or capability building

Education and/or Certification Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required; preferred fields include Business, Marketing, Data Analytics, Economics, Statistics, Computer Science, or related discipline.
• Advanced degree, MBA, or relevant analytics/category management certification highly desirable.
• Experience with retailer, syndicated, BI, visualization, and presentation tools required.

Skills

• Scintilla/Walmart analytics and ability to integrate retailer, POS, syndicated, competitive, and internal data sources.
• Category management leadership and retail marketplace strategy.
• Shopper insights, path-to-purchase thinking, and consumer/shopper behavior interpretation.
• Advanced analytical thinking, quantitative problem solving, and business math.
• Executive and customer-facing storytelling with data.
• Omnichannel mindset across physical and digital retail environments.
• Influence, stakeholder management, and trusted advisor relationship-building.
• Initiative, ownership, and ability to proactively identify insights and opportunities.
• Process improvement, change management, and project prioritization.
• Presentation development, dashboard interpretation, scorecarding, and performance reporting.
• Leadership, coaching, collaboration, and ability to elevate analytical capability across teams.

Success Profile / What Good Looks Like

• Acts as a trusted category advisor to Walmart and internal commercial leaders.
• Consistently moves beyond reporting to explain what changed, why it changed, and what action should be taken.
• Connects shopper behavior to category strategy, commercial recommendations, and retail execution.
• Builds compelling, data-backed stories that improve line reviews, JBPs, QBRs, and strategic planning outcomes.
• Elevates Kontoor’s credibility as a best-in-class category management and shopper insights partner.
• Proactively surfaces growth opportunities, competitive risks, and execution improvements before stakeholders ask.

Leadership Competencies Expected for this Role:

Evolving Leader

Global Agility – Leads diverse teams, adapts amidst ambiguity

Purposeful Integrity – Leads with values, earns team’s trust, handles conflicts ethically

Strategic Foresight – Connects teamwork to business strategy

Customer Centric Innovation – Leads improvements rooted in customer needs

Urgency for Impact – Drive priorities forward with pace and purpose

Bold Accountability – Set high standards and model responsibility

Empowered Collaboration – Builds inclusive teams, collaborates across functions

Why Kontoor Brands?

At Kontoor, we offer a comprehensive benefit package to fit your lifestyle. Our benefits are crafted with the same care as our products.

When our employees are healthy, secure, and well, they bring their best selves to work. Kontoor Brands supports you with a competitive benefits program that provides choice and flexibility to meet your and your family’s needs – now and in the future. We offer resources to support your physical, emotional, social, and financial wellbeing, plus benefits like discounts on our apparel. Kontoor Brands also provides four weeks of Paid Parental Leave to eligible employees who are new parents, Flexible Fridays, and Tuition Reimbursement.

We are proud to offer a workplace culture centered on equitable opportunities and a sense of belonging for all team members. Here we have a global workforce of high-performing teams that both unlocks our individual uniqueness and harnesses our collaborative talents.