Category Team Lead for National Grocery Accounts (Kroger and Albertsons)

• National Grocery Team Category Manager with a team of one Associate Category Manager• Responsible for leading development of category insights to help drive ekaterra's tea business and category growth across the grocery and naturals channels• Tasked with creating closer retailer relationships to make ekaterra the trusted category partner of choice for grocery retailers• Assisted with development of national level category growth story• Lead a first of its kind project to connect the category growth drivers to the ekaterra innovation pipeline to enable the sales team to sell innovation to retailers based on how it fits into the future category growth model

Consumer insights subject matter expert for Kroger Enterprise. Collaborates with sales team and Category Center of Excellence to develop best in class impactful sales reporting. • Built out custom brand and segment consumer demographic/psychographic profiles with KPIs to match brands for impactful merchandising and promotions.• Researched brand and product interaction, consumer demographics, and psychographics to build out sales scenarios for cross merchandised programs.• Created insights based on sales rates and trends, cross shop, and past promo performance to support sell in of national merchandising programs.• Designed division dashboard recaps around topline performance, new item trends, and out of stocks, to update Kroger category managers and internal sales partners monthly.• Implemented a weekly pricing monitoring report to inform wholesalers of package and division compliance.• Communicate weekly ad performance tracking at a total ad and package level to inform Kroger category managers and internal sales team of ad execution.

Beer category trend and market demographics specialist for Kroger West divisions. • Developed studies alongside Kroger AB InBev sales team for forecasting, pre/post-promotional analysis, and product selection or discontinuation to grow Beer Category and AB InBev share.• Coordinated with the merchandising supervisor to develop and recommend schematics.• Provided category analysis by leveraging data available from syndicated sources such IRI Unify and Retail Execution.• Created reports utilizing syndicated data sources to provide in depth analysis of AB InBev and Beer Category performance within Kroger.

Executes the Kroger Company's space management (KOMPASS) process for several categories as part of the Planogram Center of Excellence (PCOE). Execute "Customer 1st" shelf strategies to enhance the consumer’s shopping experience. Positively and measurably impacted the Kroger Company's sales/margins by providing accurate placement and allocation for all items. •Provide category analysis by leveraging data available from syndicated sources such AC Nielsen, IRI 84.51, and Market 6.•Rapidly developed expertise in the area of assortment and space analysis for multiple categories to enable Kroger to reach their sales goals and stated objectives.•Assist in pre/post analysis of each category update.

Provided technical and developmental support for proprietary iCBRIS application. Created reports using data gathered from the application to provide Kroger Division Managers with actionable insights to improve operational efficiency and efficacy.•Played an integral part in the development of the iCBRIS application by providing insight into features and UI design.•Creation and Implementation of training material and courses for the application and reporting systems to be used by both management and field representatives.•Became a subject matter expert for the iCBRIS application and was the main contact for enterprise support of company iPads. Creation of SharePoint reports utilizing Business Objects and SQL Server.•Provided weekly, quarterly and annual analysis of application data for both internal and Kroger Corporate Management.

Supported Kroger Corporate Brands and Kroger Manufacturing product data management process from an administrative and data research, collection, and entry perspective. Assisted Corporate Brands and Kroger Manufacturing in successfully creating and managing Trade and Packaging Specifications in the Global Specification Management (GSM) module of the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) application. Created validated, approved, maintained, and published accurate, detailed product specifications according to the set business rules for assigned commodities.•Created new, revised existing, and validated Trade and Packaging Specifications following current business rules.•Maintained trade and packaging specifications for assigned commodities, including making revisions and retiring former versions as products and/or artwork changed.•Ensured that all components of product hierarchy were properly linked with all related specifications.

Coordinated the Sales & Marketing team through prospect research, campaign and event follow up, cross platform promotional efforts, and reporting and analysis of combined Sales & Marketing activities. Created and ensured that a repeatable and successful sales process is followed and becomes ingrained within the organization. Provided weekly, monthly, and quarterly feedback and recommendations for continued process improvement. •Researched potential clients and introduced them to the WorkFlex product suite to expand market visibility. Created a targeted marketing plan that resulted in over 1,000% increase in contacts since date of hire.•Collaborated with Sales executives to take over nurture accounts, which allowed for more effective account coverage while executives focus attention on decision stage prospects.•Designed and implemented follow up process and report to analyze effectiveness of e-mail campaigns. Resulted in increased internal visibility of marketing qualified lead coverage•Responsible for all industry event follow up by creating a template for semi-custom emails in order to schedule secondary calls and product demonstrations. Created report to assess event attendance ROI based on number of new active opportunities.