About Mars, IncorporatedMars is a family-owned business with more than a century of history making diverse products and offering services for people and the pets people love. With almost $45 billion in sales, the company is a global business that produces some of the’s best-loved brands: M&M;’s®, SNICKERS®, TWIX®, MILKY WAY®, DOVE®, PEDIGREE®, ROYAL CANIN®, WHISKAS®, EXTRA®, ORBIT®, 5™, SKITTLES®, BEN’S ORIGINAL® and MARS DRINKS and COCOAVIA®. Mars also provides veterinary health services that include BANFIELD® Pet Hospitals, Blue Pearl®, VCA® and Pet Partners™. Headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars operates in more than 80 countries. The Mars Five Principles – Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom – inspire its more than 100,000 Associates to create value for all its partners and deliver growth they are proud of every day.Category Manager ItalyReporting to the Category Lead Regional Emerging Markets, this role is responsible for delivering category leadership for the Italian market and supporting Switzerland. Using a combination of category, shopper and consumer insight, the Category Manager is the expert of the category performance of our portfolio and with (defined priority) markets and customers. The Category Manager uses this expertise to deliver objective recommendations to the customer, and to the MARS customer team to help shape our strategy and approach with the customer. Key deliverables of the role are to improve the Perfect Store compliance & scores, land distribution and execution of our NPD in line with targets and to work on category vision with the customers, enabling Mars to lead category growth in the customer.What will be your key responsibilities?Category and insights business orientationDeliver best in class Category Management by taking an objective total category perspective when providing insights to the customer and internal teams.Delivery of an improved Perfect Store compliance through the creation of category-focused selling stories and proactive management of range.Execution of Mars NPD (L&S;) launches in line with targets, through the creation of category focused selling stories, identifying listing opportunities/challenges and providing merchandising solutions to maximize on shelf delivery.Delivery of an in- depth category performance understanding to help inform internal customer team decision making and strategy.Input into KPI setting and tracking against these, including Perfect Store, Core Range compliance and distribution.Strategy development and visionLeads the localization and deployment of the category fundamentals: - Tailor the category vision content to local customer and use to develop a Category strategy aligned with the retailer. -Develop and deploy Perfect Store priorities for the markets incl. a clear vision of the shelf - Deploy vision to the shelf for the