Senior Manager, Category Commercial – Plant-Based Yogurt & Functionals

A national consumer packaged goods organization is seeking a senior commercial category leader to turn business-unit strategy into channel and customer plans for a high-growth plant-based yogurt and functional nutrition portfolio. This role owns the connective tissue between category insight, customer strategy, selling stories, assortment, innovation, forecasting, and performance management across channels.

The best fit has progressive CPG experience spanning category management, commercial planning, customer strategy, or sales leadership and can move fluently between syndicated data, financial tradeoffs, cross-functional influence, and customer-ready action. Experience in refrigerated foods, yogurt, dairy alternatives, wellness, or other fast-moving food and beverage categories is especially valuable.

Location: United States

Work Setting: Remote

Role Type: Contract

Contract Duration: Long-term contract with ability to convert to permanent

Pay Rate: $47.74/hour

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage may be available after 30 days of employment.
• Weekly pay and direct deposit.
• Referral bonus opportunities.
• Ongoing support from CRG recruiting and account management throughout the assignment.
• 401(k) eligibility begins after 12 months as a CRG employee.
• Benefit eligibility, plan details, waiting periods, and employee costs are confirmed during onboarding.

Responsibilities

• Translate business-unit objectives and sources of growth into clear commercial strategies by channel and customer segment.
• Lead category commercial planning, including customer selling stories, assortment recommendations, long-range planning, and marketplace prioritization, in partnership with Sales and Revenue Growth Management.
• Convert strategy into executable channel playbooks and customer plans through planning and alignment routines, including Plan Alignment Meetings, ECR, and integrated business planning.
• Serve as the central sales voice in cross-functional forums by synthesizing consumer trends, syndicated data, competitive intelligence, and customer performance into decisions and actions.
• Partner with Brand, Finance, Sales, Supply Chain, Demand Planning, and RGM to size opportunities, assess business cases, support innovation launches, and build execution trackers against expectations.
• Align forecasts and commercial assumptions to financial targets while protecting service levels and execution across priority customers.
• Establish disciplined monthly performance routines that test whether plans were executed to specification, whether impact matches expectations, and where teams need to accelerate, pivot, or correct course.
• Provide cross-channel sales input to marketing and innovation teams on pricing, pack architecture, assortment, product development, and launch readiness.
• Act as the first point of connection between Sales and Marketing, resolving ambiguity with a practical, consumer-centered, growth-oriented approach.
• Influence senior stakeholders without direct authority and keep complex workstreams focused on the few actions most likely to drive sustainable, profitable growth.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required.
• 5-10+ years of progressive CPG experience in category management, commercial planning, customer strategy, broker management, sales, or a closely related customer-facing discipline.
• Strong command of Circana/IRI, NielsenIQ, or comparable syndicated and panel data, with the ability to turn analysis into customer-friendly recommendations and selling stories.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-functional initiatives, influencing without authority, and delivering measurable commercial results.
• Experience developing assortment, pricing, promotion, innovation, channel, or customer recommendations grounded in consumer, shopper, and financial insight.
• Financial and forecasting fluency, including the ability to connect category actions to volume, revenue, margin, and service implications.
• Proven ability to build strategic relationships across Sales, Brand, Finance, Supply Chain, RGM, Demand Planning, and customer teams.
• Executive-ready written, verbal, and presentation skills with strong operational follow-through.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in yogurt, dairy, dairy alternatives, refrigerated foods, plant-based products, functional nutrition, or health-and-wellness CPG.
• Business-unit or portfolio-level commercial planning experience across multiple customers and channels.
• Hands-on experience with channel playbooks, innovation commercialization, integrated business planning, monthly business reviews, and performance tracking.
• Exposure to retailer-specific data ecosystems such as 84.51°, Walmart Luminate, Numerator, SPINS, or customer loyalty-card platforms.