Senior Manager Go To Market / Category Lead

This role drives business success for the Football category across East Europe — Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia and the Baltics — through the development and execution of a robust category go-to-market plan within the strategic framework set by the European and global Business Units. The postholder acts as the category expert and key contact for the region and owns the category GTM plans end to end. The position sits within the Merchandising & Planning team and works closely with Sales, Marketing, Sports Marketing, Finance, the European Business Unit and Alliance Key Accounts.

• Coordinate, set up, execute and review the Category GTM plan for East Europe on an ongoing basis, covering product, distribution across all countries and commercial channels, communication, activation tools and sports marketing from a hyperlocal perspective.
• Deliver a complete Category GTM proposition and local assortments per account in line with overall company objectives for the dedicated product division.
• Represent the brand and the respective Business Unit internally and externally, acting as a proactive ambassador and expert on Category drivers in the marketplace.
• Provide strategic input to the Europe Business Unit on local ranging and forecasting topics such as data, mark-up, pricing maintenance, segmentation and allocation, and on country price-grouping and pricing exception requests.
• Develop Category consumer profiles and provide input into the SMU of local key accounts.
• Steer Marketplace conversations for category growth, including own retail, ecommerce and alliance key accounts such as Zalando or Decathlon.
• Act as key contact for Sales and cross-functional marketing teams on Category product, activation and other GTM topics, steering and handing over category direction and seasonal plans to Sales and Marketing during seasonal milestones And engaging cross-functional Category expert groups to review and steer the zone GTM plan and process.
• Create and present specific promo ranges and product offers in alignment with the Europe Business Unit together with Sports Marketing, and ensure efficient execution of the sample order process on target and on budget.
• Drive the successful sell-in process from category input through pre-lines to sell-in meetings of identified strategic accounts, and develop distribution and segmentation strategies to manage key franchises in the zone through MRA tiering and allocation.
• Use available market data such as NPD data, Share of Search, market insights and sales data to build dedicated product division plans, and maintain regular analytics on the sell-in and sell-through performance of the category.
• Lead and develop direct reports from a functional and horizontal perspective, create a positive workplace culture that leads to collective success, and live and represent the leadership behaviours expected at adidas.

• 6-8 years of merchandising experience, together with cross-functional marketing and/or sales experience.
• Fluency in English, written and spoken.
• Advanced IT skills in MS Office, particularly Excel and PowerPoint.
• Consumer focus with deep product and range knowledge.
• Strong product and assortment knowledge and experience of driving growth in a product category.
• Excellent understanding of the balanced relationship between brand and commercial aspects in order to develop distribution-channel-specific GTM solutions.
• Strong organisational and convincing presentation skills.
• Proactive, engaging and impact-oriented mindset with the ability to think end to end.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with different international cultures.
• Business mindset with very good numerical and analytical skills and experience in finance.
• Good experience of managing projects at cross-functional level.
• Advanced cross-functional marketing knowledge and market experience in sport and/or fashion/lifestyle categories.
• Ability to travel domestically or internationally as required.
• Competencies for working with hybrid and remote teams.

• Passion for sports, preferably football-specific, with knowledge of the sport.
• Passion for sports and fashion.
• People leadership experience is ideal.
• University degree in business, ideally with a marketing and sales focus, or equivalent professional experience.

The company believes that embedding diversity, equity and inclusion into its culture and talent processes gives employees a sense of belonging and the brand a real competitive advantage.