Position: Associate Director / Director , Category
Location: Bangalore
Working Days: Monday to Friday
Experience Required: 10+ years
Client: Leading Home Appliances Brand
Our Client is building India's most innovative kitchen appliances brand. Backed by deep commercial kitchen expertise and a strong in-house R&D team, we bring category-first innovations into Indian homes. Led by repeat founders, we are now entering a rapid national expansion phase across online and offline channels.
This is not a category executive role with a fancier title. You will own the category , the products in it, the price at which they sell, the channels they reach, and whether the P&L is healthy.
What you'll own
- Own the category's performance across online and offline , Amazon, Flipkart, D2C, general trade, and modern trade , with a plan for each channel, not just presence in it
- Identify white spaces, enter new segments, and stay ahead of competition; at least 10 to 20% of GMV should come from segments that didn't exist in our portfolio 12 months ago
- Drive consistent QoQ GMV growth; if growth is flat, you are expected to know why and fix it
- Own the full NPD cycle , brief, cost target, milestone tracking, launch, and 90-day post-launch performance
- Build offline price points and pack requirements into the brief from day one, not as an afterthought
- Hold the bar on launch quality , milestone adherence, BOM costs within target, and a 90-day customer rating of 4.0 or above
- Own gross margin across all channels monthly; keep promotional ROI above 2x and flag margin risks early with a response, not just a number
- Build and hold a pricing architecture that works for both online and trade partners with zero unplanned channel price parity violations
- Online: own catalogue completeness, search rank for priority keywords, conversion rate, and ROAS across all live SKUs
- Offline: own shelf presence, POS material, planogram compliance, and promoter effectiveness at key accounts
- A product that converts well on Amazon but is invisible on the shelf in Croma is a problem you own
- Own the rolling SKU-level forecast that drives production and keep accuracy consistently high
- Keep stockouts low on hero SKUs and write-offs well below 1% of annual category revenue
- Manage model transitions actively , the plan to clear old inventory starts the day a new brief is signed
- Define ranging strategy by channel format and work with the sales team to execute it
- Spot and resolve channel conflict early , price undercutting, grey market flow, or distributor behaviour that damages the brand
- Build direct relationships with key modern trade buyers and feed field intelligence back into category strategy
What we're looking for
- Seven to ten years owning a category or brand at a consumer tech, appliance, or D2C company with real offline distribution
- Has run a P&L, launched a product, and dealt with Indian omnichannel retail first hand , distributors, modern trade ranging cycles, marketplace algorithms
- Analytical enough to draw conclusions from data, commercial enough to negotiate hard, and collaborative enough to get things done through teams that don't report to you
- MBA preferred; engineering background a strong plus given the product complexity
What makes this opportunity different
- Direct access to the Business Head and founding team with real decisionmaking authority
- Full ownership of a category from the ground up , ranging, pricing, NPD, channel strategy
- A product portfolio that competes on genuine innovation, not price
- The chance to build systems and market presence from scratch, not manage legacy structures
Our Client is not competing on discounting. We compete on innovation, design, and value , and we need someone who can own that story from the product brief all the way to the store shelf.
