Category Director, Walmart

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the development of Walmart's Total Pet category vision, creating retailer-facing growth stories and strategic recommendations that drive category expansion, household penetration, shopper retention, and loyalty.
• Define the "perfect store" and "perfect digital shelf" for Walmart's pet business, integrating physical shelf execution, digital content, search, conversion, and omnichannel shopping missions.
• Establish category frameworks for assortment, modulars, shelving, fixtures, adjacencies, merchandising, and department design that support long-term category growth and retailer objectives.
• Ensure category strategies reflect both in-store productivity requirements and evolving omnichannel dynamics, including Walmart.com, pickup and delivery missions, digital discoverability, content quality, online leakage opportunities, and conversion optimization.
• Partner with Category Leadership and customer teams to support a ONE Category Management operating model while creating scalable processes, automation, and efficiencies that increase strategic capacity across the organization.
• Collaborate with Sales, Shopper Insights, Digital Commerce, Analytics, Marketing, SRM, Supply Chain, Customer Development, and Finance teams to ensure integrated category and customer growth strategies.
• Own the development and execution of Walmart-specific category toolkits, insights platforms, growth strategies, modular recommendations, and omnichannel category solutions that support customer engagement and planning.
• Leverage advanced analytics, automation, and space planning technologies to improve the speed, consistency, scalability, and quality of category recommendations and modular execution.
• Lead Walmart's category learning agenda, translating Scintilla, Nielsen/Circana, panel, shopper, tender, digital, and retailer data into actionable customer insights, growth opportunities, and strategic learning plans.
• Deliver bold, differentiated recommendations on shelving, assortment, fixtures, category adjacencies, merchandising, and the future evolution of Walmart's Total Pet department.
• Define best-practice frameworks for digital category execution, including taxonomy, content quality, search optimization, ratings and reviews, item availability, discoverability, and conversion drivers.
• Integrate insights, analytics, and test-and-learn approaches into category strategy while connecting physical and digital shopper journeys to drive measurable business results.
• Contribute category expertise to Walmart Joint Business Planning (JBP), annual business reviews, top-to-top meetings, account planning, and long-range strategy initiatives.
• Defend and expand Mars' category advisorship opportunities across Total Pet, Cat Treats, Digital Shelf, fixture strategy, and future strategic growth areas within Walmart.
• Influence senior internal stakeholders and Walmart decision-makers through objective category recommendations, strategic thinking, customer-first logic, and actionable business plans.
• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing Walmart Category team by clarifying priorities, developing capabilities, driving accountability, and establishing standards of category excellence.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree required.
• 10+ years of experience in Category Management, Category Leadership, Shopper Insights, Sales Strategy, Retail Strategy, or related CPG leadership roles.
• Deep expertise in category management, retailer advisorship, shopper insights, omnichannel strategy, space planning, assortment strategy, and category growth planning.
• Demonstrated success translating complex data and shopper insights into retailer-facing category growth strategies that influence customer decisions and drive commercial outcomes.
• Experience leading category organizations and high-performing teams within highly matrixed environments.
• Strong understanding of Walmart merchandising processes, omnichannel retailing, digital shelf dynamics, modular planning, and category growth strategy.
• Proven ability to influence senior internal stakeholders and retailer partners through strategic recommendations, executive storytelling, and customer-centric thinking.
• Advanced analytical capabilities with experience leveraging Scintilla, Nielsen, Circana, panel data, digital analytics, and emerging category technologies.
• Experience leading large-scale modular, assortment, shelving, merchandising, and category optimization initiatives.
• Strong leadership, communication, collaboration, and stakeholder management skills with the ability to drive alignment across cross-functional teams.
• Experience developing strategic learning agendas, synthesizing multiple data sources, identifying white-space opportunities, and converting insights into action.
• Demonstrated capability in building and scaling high-performing teams while leveraging automation and process improvements to drive organizational effectiveness.