Category Group Manager

Category Group Manager

Copello are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Category Group Manager on behalf of our client, to lead and shape the development of category management strategies across a diverse portfolio. This role is pivotal in driving the maturity, quality, and adoption of category strategies, delivering measurable value and commercial excellence.

You will directly lead a small team of (2–5 ) Category management staff fostering their professional growth, deepening category expertise, and building high- performing capabilities. Using your commercial insight, you will identify and seize opportunities for improvement, engaging with stakeholders to overcome challenges and deliver results.

The scope of the role spans large, complex platforms; equipment and support contracts; infrastructure and facilities management; corporate and digital services; and commodity categories, overseeing the commercial lifecycle from strategy creation to delivery.

You will work closely with senior leaders to provide a customer-focused service, build trust, and become a valued commercial advisor. Developing strong, strategic supplier relationships will also be key, ensuring value for money, robust risk management, and alignment to organisational objectives.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic delivery and category leadership

• Champion category management across your portfolio area.

• Develop, communicate, and cascade a clear category vision aligned with organisational priorities.

• Conduct annual and quarterly category planning, ensuring priorities are embedded into planning and budgeting cycles.

• Consolidate sub-category workstream plans into a coherent overarching strategy, incorporating risk and quality considerations.

• Ensure governance and processes are in place to leverage deep market insights and category expertise.

• Coordinate with other category teams to ensure alignment and integration across portfolios.

Value creation and opportunity delivery

• Lead opportunity analyses, producing evidence-based assessments to inform category priorities.

• Support business cases, ensuring coherence, through-life value, and robust risk management.

• Map and engage key stakeholders, cultivating proactive relationships with internal teams and the supply chain.

Market insight and best practice adoption

• Bring external market intelligence and best practice into the organisation.

• Drive collaboration and innovation across the enterprise to deliver continuous improvement.

• Share lessons learned and promote a culture of knowledge-sharing and excellence.

Team leadership and performance management

• Define capacity and capability requirements, recruiting and deploying resources effectively.

• Oversee impact assessments for category strategies, ensuring business change is embedded into business-as-usual operations.

• Develop a high-performing, collaborative team culture, providing coaching and guidance.

• Report regularly to senior stakeholders on progress, risks, and outcomes.

Skills & Experience

• Proven leadership experience in a senior commercial or procurement role.

• Strong strategic thinking and decision-making skills, with the ability to act quickly and effectively.

• Deep commercial awareness and expert understanding of the commercial lifecycle.

• Demonstrable track record of delivering both financial and non-financial benefits through category management in a complex project or programme environment.

• Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, with the credibility to influence at senior levels and command level of confidence 

• Expert level knowledge of relevant industries, supply chains, and categories.
• Ability to commute twice weekly to Bristol.
• Hold an active SC, lapsed SC or eligibility.