Category Insights Manager – CPG

We are seeking a Category Insights Manager to join a growing CPG organization supporting a portfolio of household-name food brands.
This is a highly visible role at the intersection of category management, retail analytics, consumer insights, innovation, and commercial strategy. You’ll use syndicated data to understand what is happening across the marketplace, uncover growth opportunities, and translate complex information into clear stories and recommendations that influence business decisions.
The role is ideal for someone with experience in category management, category analytics, or syndicated data who wants to expand beyond a single retailer or customer and gain broader exposure across Marketing, Sales, Category Management, Commercial Strategy, and senior leadership.
What You’ll Do

• Serve as a champion for the category, retailer, and shopper, bringing an insights-driven perspective to business decisions.
• Leverage Circana, NielsenIQ, POS, panel, market trends, and other research sources to identify category and business opportunities.
• Analyze category performance, market share, distribution, velocity, competitive activity, assortment, pricing, and shopper behavior.
• Translate complex datasets into clear, actionable business narratives and recommendations.
• Develop weekly and monthly category, brand, and market performance reporting for cross-functional teams and leadership.
• Support strategic and ad hoc analytical questions from Marketing, Sales, Commercial Strategy, Category Management, and senior leaders.
• Identify opportunities to expand the business through category, retailer, and market-level analysis.
• Evaluate assortment and shelf opportunities and provide data-driven recommendations to improve category performance.
• Support business questions related to pack architecture, product cannibalization, assortment, distribution, and growth opportunities.
• Build compelling PowerPoint presentations and data visualizations for executive and cross-functional audiences.
• Provide analytical support for leadership presentations, business reviews, and other high-visibility initiatives.

Innovation & New Product Insights

• Play an important role in measuring the success of new product launches across a growing portfolio of consumer brands.
• Manage new-item attribution and product coding within syndicated-data platforms.
• Ensure new products and SKUs are accurately represented within Circana and NielsenIQ reporting structures.
• Track new-product performance across sales, distribution, velocity, and other key measures.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to understand how innovation is performing and identify opportunities to optimize new product launches.
• Provide analytical insights that help inform commercialization, retail positioning, and go-to-market strategy.

Syndicated Data & Reporting

• Work extensively within Circana and other syndicated-data platforms to answer category, retail, and business questions.
• Navigate custom syndicated databases and analytical models to uncover meaningful insights.
• Work with both POS and consumer panel data to understand what is happening in the marketplace and the shopper behaviors behind it.
• Maintain recurring reporting and syndicated-data structures to ensure information is accurate, timely, and actionable.
• Serve as an internal resource for syndicated-data questions and ongoing analytical requests.
• Partner with external data providers, including Circana and NielsenIQ, to support reporting, database management, and analytical needs.

What We’re Looking For

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience; MBA is a plus.
• 3+ years of experience in CPG, retail, category management, category analytics, customer insights, or a related analytical discipline.
• Strong experience working with syndicated retail data.
• Hands-on experience with Circana/IRI strongly preferred; NielsenIQ experience is also highly relevant.
• Strong understanding of CPG and retail metrics including:
  • Market share
  • Dollar and unit sales
  • Distribution
  • Velocity
  • Assortment
  • POS data
  • Consumer/shopper panel data
  • Competitive performance
  • New-product performance
• Ability to navigate syndicated-data platforms and identify the appropriate data needed to answer business questions.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to identify relationships, trends, and business drivers within large datasets.
• Excellent PowerPoint and storytelling skills, with the ability to simplify complex analysis for business audiences.
• Ability to visually communicate data and insights in a clear and compelling way.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to influence and collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders.
• Comfortable balancing recurring business reporting with new and evolving analytical questions.
• Self-starter who can prioritize multiple requests while maintaining a high level of accuracy and attention to detail.

Ideal Candidate Background

We are open to candidates coming from a variety of CPG and retail backgrounds, including:

• Category Management
• Category Insights
• Category Analytics
• Category Development
• Customer Insights
• Commercial Insights
• Retail Analytics
• Sales Analytics

This could be an especially compelling next step for a Category Analyst or Senior Category Analyst who has developed strong syndicated-data and retail analytics expertise and is ready to take on broader ownership, visibility, and influence.
Experience supporting a major national retailer within a customer-facing category management or analytics function would translate particularly well.
Why This Opportunity Stands Out
This is an opportunity to move beyond simply reporting what happened and help the organization understand why it happened and what to do next.
You’ll work with recognizable consumer brands, emerging categories, major retailers, and new product innovation while gaining exposure across multiple parts of a large CPG organization.
The role offers the opportunity to:

• Work with household-name food brands consumers see every day.
• Influence category strategy, innovation, assortment, and retail growth.
• Gain meaningful visibility with VP-level and senior leadership.
• Work across Marketing, Sales, Category Management, and Commercial Strategy.
• Help evaluate and shape the success of new product launches.
• Expand beyond a single retailer or customer account into a broader enterprise insights role.
• Develop experience that can lead naturally into areas such as Category Management, Revenue Growth Management, Customer Marketing, Commercial Strategy, and customer-facing insights leadership.

For someone who enjoys combining CPG, retail, syndicated data, business strategy, and storytelling, this role offers an opportunity to make insights visible and actionable across the organization.

Additional Details

• Contract-to-hire opportunity with the intention to convert the successful candidate to a permanent position.
• W-2 employment with a full benefits package, including PTO, health, dental, and vision insurance, and a 401(k) match.
• Compensation during the initial phase is $50–$58/hour at 40 hours per week based on experience.
• Anticipated conversion compensation is $110,000–$120,000 base salary plus bonus.