Founded in Japan in 1887, Kao is passionate about making a difference in people’s lives with our high-quality products and services to create a Kirei Life for all – a beautiful life that respects the needs of our consumers and customers as well as the planet. We never compromise on quality and craft our products with care for the consumer and the environment.  As a company driven by purpose and strong corporate values, we pride ourselves to be listed among the World´s Most Ethical Companies since 16 consecutive years. Our corporate philosophy, the Kao Way, guides us in everything we do – acting with integrity, courageously driving innovation, and treating each other with trust and respect.

The role:

As a key member of the Category & Insights team for our Kao UK Consumer Care Business, reporting into the Senior Category Manager, you will partner closely with the UK Commercial teams to identify opportunities to drive the hair and skincare categories in line with business objectives, and with the UK & Global Marketing teams to identify unique and relevant brand & category opportunities. In this role, you will turn insights into compelling category stories to inspire action that drive category growth for Kao and their key retail partners. You will have full account ownership responsibilities and build trusted category relationships, combining retail and shopper data to produce Best in Class range reviews delivering against distribution, space, and merchandising targets for the Kao portfolio. Your category expertise will also support category strategy definition to establish category growth opportunities. To be successful you will have a real passion for beauty, a drive to champion and defend brands, and a can do approach to collaborate positively internally and externally!

What you will do:

  • Responsible for providing analysis, input and direction into strategy development, account plans and brand plans to ensure Kao wins across all retailers and channels.
  • Creating, managing, and strengthening relationships within our retail partners, ensuring that a credible and objective voice is heard, and a solid and trustworthy partnership is delivered.
  • Range reviews: from creating the brief, managing the process, reporting on outcome, and follow up to ensure objectives met and recommendations implemented.
  • Driving distribution growth in existing and new customers, investigating, and flagging opportunities for new product launches, incremental listings, and additional space gains.
  • Deep dives as required on market/retailers, with insights and recommendations on growth opportunities & how to improve performance.
  • Using impartial category expertise to build buyer level relationships and influence change.

What you will need:

  • Professional knowledge of market data analysis, methodology and relevant syndicated data (IRI/Circana, Dunnhumby, Nectar, Kantar).
  • Experience with JDA space planning tool. 
  • Strong communication and influencing skills, both internal and external.
  • Strong analytical skills with an ability build credible category insight and rationale.
  • Retail expert with intimate understanding of retail levers which drive performance (Penetration, Ranging, Merchandising, Display, Promotion, Pricing).
  • Ability to manage projects across multiple functions both internally and externally.
  • Strong, concise presentation skills and storytelling.
  • Beauty Category management experience, 3 years +

How we work: Having been selected among the World´s Most Ethical Companies for 16 consecutive years, we are a company with a purpose and strong corporate values. We never compromise on quality and craft our products with care for the consumer and the environment. At Kao, each employee can actively shape their job and their career. We work collaboratively to achieve our common goals, always aiming to deliver the best for our customers.

What we offer: A friendly and flexible work environment with competitive salaries, benefits package, ongoing development and the opportunity to enhance your skills and deliver tangible results. At Kao your voice will be heard. Your opinion really counts. We believe that change comes from taking opportunities into your own hands, so we value and reward entrepreneurial thinking and innovation.

Hiring Process: Kao embraces the diversity and the individual personalities of its people because we believe it is diversity that makes us strong. This is why we welcome applications from all areas of the global community. 

Want to learn more: If you feel you are as unique as our products and want to find out why 33,000 people across the globe opted for a career with us please visit our Americas website (https://www.kao.com/americas/en/) or EMEA website (https://www.kao.com/emea/en/)

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Voluntary Diversity Data Monitoring Notice 

Kao is committed to ensuring equal opportunities across all its activities, including an inclusive candidate recruitment and hiring process.  

As part of the recruitment process you may be asked to share some diversity data on a voluntary basis: namely your gender, ethnicity and whether you have a disability. Please note you are under no obligation to provide such data, and this would make no impact on your application. 

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If you choose to provide this diversity data, your answers will be collected by our trusted recruitment platform, Greenhouse, and it is Greenhouse who will provide Kao with the anonymised reports. Greenhouse will only collect this information for the purpose outlined above and will never share this information with anyone else. You can find out more information in Greenhouse process your personal data in their Privacy Policy.  

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