Senior Team Lead Category

What you'll do:

Category strategy

• Define and evolve the global category vision and 3-year ambition
• Decide what the category is for, who it serves, and how it grows — across segments, geographies, and channels
• Translate company strategy into concrete category direction
• Align strategy with senior stakeholders, up to C-level

Portfolio ownership

• Design the Good/Better/Best architecture: SKU roles, lifecycle stages, trade-up paths
• Build and maintain a Y1–Y3+ product roadmap
• Run quarterly portfolio reviews to spot winners, slow-movers, gaps, and overlaps
• Drive SKU rationalisation with Commercial and Finance
• Keep the product catalogue as the single source of truth

Innovation, close to R&D

• Lead product discovery: market gaps, Jobs-to-Be-Done, opportunity sizing
• Write innovation briefs with clear consumer and commercial rationale
• Partner directly with R&D and engineering through design and build — not just at handoff
• Track competitor launches and tech trends to inform the pipeline
• Maintain a 12–18 month innovation pipeline with clear stage-gate milestones

Product truth & marketing foundations

• Define value propositions and reasons to believe
• Set positioning and trade-up messaging
• Set naming conventions and the portfolio story
• Set claim guardrails and messaging architecture for regional teams
• Produce a launch product truth doc for every new release

Pricing

• Set global pricing principles and value guardrails
• Validate price ladders and trade-up logic with the Performance & Value Manager
• Keep pricing coherent across SKUs, markets, and channels
• Flag pricing risks early, with recommendations

Global–regional collaboration

• Act as the global point of contact for EU, APAC, and LATAM teams
• Provide portfolio guardrails, launch guidance, and product truth to regional managers
• Run quarterly global–regional alignment sessions
• Feed regional insight and competitive signals into global decisions
• Keep regional adaptations within global coherence boundaries

Who we are looking for:

7–10 years in Category Management, Product Management, or Portfolio Strategy in consumer goods, e-commerce, or DTC

A track record managing complex, multi-SKU portfolios (mattress, furniture, home, FMCG, or similar)

Real experience taking products from brief to launch alongside R&D — this is core to the role, not a nice-to-have

Comfort operating across global/multi-regional models

A strategic thinker who can turn ambiguity into direction, then execute it

Someone who's built a category roadmap from scratch, not just maintained one

Strong with data, business cases, and consumer research

A confident communicator who can align senior stakeholders across functions

DTC, online-first, or omnichannel experience is a plus

What we offer:

A culture of freedom, impact, and zero politics — full ownership from day one

Pet-friendly office

Discounts on Emma products

Health insurance, including dental

24 days holiday/year, +1 per year at Emma (up to 29 days max)

Multinational teams